Every Now and Then Again
by aliasaurorasaccounthasmoved
Summary: Sequel to Every Now and Then. The Promised Day has come and gone, Ed and Winry have unofficially "hooked up" and our two favorite alchemist brothers are faced with a sickness that leaves no one unchanged. Rated 'cause my characters cuss. COMPLETED!
1. Drought and Sweat

**Hi, everyone! I'm so excited to introduce the sequel to Every Now and Then! I know I had lots of readers who were sad to see ENAT go, as was I, so I knew it wouldn't be gone before plots ran wild in my head and I felt almost forced to continue ENAT. The result is, as you can see, Every Now and Then Again, which if I have my way will run for fewer chapters than ENAT but should amount to basically the same word count (I don't like reading fics with an inordinate amount of words, and I'm a fast reader, so I _know_ you guys don't either). **

**If you've just discovered ENATAgain I STRONGLY suggest you read ENAT before starting on this one. I tried to give the first few chapter some self-sufficiency; some of the story of the previous fic is told here in summaries and flashback, but the flashbacks are fairly concise under the assumption that everyone reading this fic will have already read ENAT. **

**As for the disclaimer, I find that anyone who thinks I am Hiromu Arakawa (and thus the owner of FMA) is a complete and total idiot and should be shot on sight.**

* * *

"It's so hot."

Understatement of the year.

"I know."

Whatever clothes they wore had only been spared from removal by their role in keeping the pair's _favorite bits_ from showing.

"This humidity sucks!"

"I know."

Silence. It was just too hot to have a conversation.

* * *

"I'm bored."

"Me too." A moment's pause, thinking of remedies. "Wanna make out?"

"Too hot."

"Good point."

More silence.

* * *

"I wish I could fall asleep or something."

"I wish we had air conditioning."

They both wished it wasn't summer.

* * *

"The ice cube I got a few minutes ago just melted on my face."

"Why are you complaining? What's a little more water on your face when it's already so hot?"

"You're right."

They were too uncomfortable to disagree.

* * *

"Shit." Ed sat up from his place on the floor. "I'm going to die."

"I know how you feel. It's like, five hundred degrees out or something."

"One hundred and four," he corrected seriously. "My shoulder hurts." Ed rubbed at the place where his automail connected to his skin. "The metal's too hot."

"_Everything_ is too hot, Ed."

The windows were open, but no tiny breeze dared to peek in.

"I wish it would rain or something."

"If it's as hot tomorrow as it was yesterday and the day before, I'm going to pack up and migrate north."

"I'll come with you."

"Every time I threaten to leave you say that."

"Every time you threaten to leave it'll be true."

"Hush, no getting philosophical when the temperature is over ninety."

"You call _that_ philosophical?"

"The rules change when the temperature does, Win."

"I don't feel like arguing about it," she said on the exhale, rolling her eyes.

They both fell silent again.

Presently Meta and Eli Erlich, the orphaned children who had moved into the Rockbell home a few months ago, trooped in the front door, Meta's loud call of "I. Fucking. Hate. Summer," audible from the living room where Ed and Winry were lazing around, unable to bring themselves to do anything.

"Don't cuss like that, sis," they heard Eli scold.

"Shut up, El Stupido," she snapped back, "It's not like everybody else in Amestris doesn't do it!"

"I'm not a stupido," he said in a small voice.

"WINRY! SHORTY! GRANDMA! JO-JO! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?" Meta screamed.

"In here," Winry called back.

"I'M NOT EFFING SHORT!"

"Shut up, Shorty," she muttered as she came into the living room, followed by her older brother. "Hey, where's Jo-jo?" Jo-jo was the pet name Eli and Meta used for their three-year-old sister Joli.

"We put her upstairs about half an hour ago; she fell asleep."

"Yeesh, only Jo-jo could have managed to fall asleep in this weather."

"She's a miracle baby," said Winry sarcastically. "So how was school?"

"Can't wait till it lets out," Meta groaned, throwing her body onto the couch.

"Seconded." Eli dropped to the floor a foot from Ed's head (both he and Winry were sprawled across the floor and had been for some time) "Where's Alphonse and Grandma?" He had taken to calling Pinako Grandma, as pretty much everyone else did, but he still called Ed and Al by their full names. Eli had always been extra polite to them, especially Ed, as if by being unnecessarily formal he could make up for the unorthodox conditions under which Ed and Eli had originally met: Right after a fight with a man called Erlich who, angered about the coup d'etat that had occurred in Amestris after the Promised Day and the death of Fuhrer Bradley and his son Selim (both homunculi), had blackmailed Ed and Al and tried to kill them. The fight had resulted in the death of Erlich by Riza's bullet, but the unfortunate death of Erlich hadn't been the end of it.

* * *

"_You're Edward Elric?" the child confirmed. The stutter he'd used to endear himself to Winry was gone._

_Ed nodded. "Yes, that's me. Who are you?"_

_The little boy pressed his lips together solemnly, then opened his rucksack and started looking for something. He wasn't searching long; the pistol was at the top and the bullets in the front pocket so he could find them easier. The child was careful not to let Ed see what he was doing, and Ed was only vaguely familiar with the sound of a gun being loaded, so he didn't realize right away what was happening._

"_Sorry, but who are you?" Ed repeated when the boy didn't answer him. He was getting frustrated with his inability to sit up due to his injury, and his instincts were telling him that something was wrong._

_The boy was trembling visibly, but he managed to load the gun and pull it out of his bag with decent speed, and he pointed it straight at Edward's head. "My name is Eli Erlich, you're the reason my father is dead, and I'm the reason you're about to be."_

* * *

Thankfully that crisis had been averted before anyone had gotten hurt, and due to Winry's compassion, Eli and his two younger sisters had been allowed to live with the Rockbells. It had been a tight squeeze in the house for a few days, then Ed and Al had had the bright idea to use alchemy to create an addition to the Rockbell home to house the homeless Erlich kids. Less than a week later and they had started school, and less than a week after that the Erlichs were practically a part of the family.

"I think Al went for another walk," said Ed.

"He does that every day," Eli noted.

"You idiots, that's because he meets up with his girlfriend," Meta snapped. She got annoyed whenever Ed or Eli displayed their shared ineptitude in the ways of people, instances such as now, though it wasn't the first time.

* * *

"_I… you all…" Winry stuttered. She started bodily pushing Ed and Al out of the room, forcing __Pinako, Meta, and Eli to move if they didn't want to get ran over. "Everyone out of my room," she explained as she shut the door in their faces and turned away—as if they could see her tears flowing through the wood of the door._

"_Shouldn't someone…?" Meta asked, pointing at the closed door to make it obvious what she meant._

"_She kicked us out," Eli responded. "Clearly she doesn't want us in there, bothering her."_

_Meta rolled her eyes. "You don't know a damn thing about women, Brother. You," she pointed at Ed, "Go back in there and calm her down."_

"_Why me?" Ed asked. "I'm the one who got her in this state in the first place."_

"_Precisely," she shot back. "I get the feeling you don't know anything about women either!"_

* * *

Ed was surprised at Meta's report that Al had a 'girlfriend' but, as he had said, the rules for emotions were different when the thermometer went over ninety. "What girlfriend?"

"_Luna_, you idiot."

"Ew," Ed said promptly, "don't even joke about that stuff." A common reaction to hearing of the self-proclaimed 'moon princess.'

"Who's joking?" Meta asked seriously.

"He really does meet up with her," Winry said dully. "Like, every day I think."

"What the hell _for?_ She's a freak."

"She's nice," said Meta mildly. "You have to have a little perspective to 'get' her, but she's not all bad."

"You haven't known her long enough," Ed responded. "She's annoying as hell. She'll go on and on about how much better she is than everyone else, and if you talk to her for more than five seconds she'll take it upon herself to diagnose every problem you have and offer 'advice.'"

"Pretty much everyone around here hates her, including her parents," Winry added. "It's not like she's a bad person, she just doesn't fit in. Doesn't even try. In a small town like this, that's not appreciated. So what Ed means is that he doubts Al would want to meet up with Luna because Luna is 'not his type.'"

"Well, that makes more sense, at least," said Meta.

"Thanks for translating my words into _girl talk_," Ed complained.

"Shut up, Shorty."

"You're lucky it's so damn hot or I'd smash you, little girl."

"Ed, if you smash anyone I'll smash you right back," Winry warned.

"Not if I smash you first."

"Good luck with that," Meta snorted. "I've seen her smash you loads of times."

"I hold back."

"_Sure_ you do," Winry and Meta said simultaneously.

"Sure I _do_!" he defended. "Anyway, how would _you _girls know? I've never seriously tried to hurt Winry, and I've never even really had a physical confrontation with Meta so you can just shut your mouth right now, _little_ girl."

"I'M NOT EFFING LITTLE!"

"Oh, c'mon, stop baiting each other," Eli pleaded, now laying on the floor with his eyes closed. "It's too flippin' hot."

"She _started_ it!"

"Who gives a shit?" Winry snapped. "I'll _finish_ it."

* * *

**Please review if you like the chapter, or if you have questions and comments. I love to hear from you readers, even if you totally hated the whole damn thing. (As a matter of principle, I review every story I read no matter how much I like or hate it.)**

**See y'all soon!**


	2. Winry's Got Mail

"Hey, Winry, a letter for you."

"Ooh, really? Give it here."

Ed passed it to her and continued sorting the rest of the mail. Winry tore it open and scanned the contents. "Oh! They wrote me back."

"Who? I didn't know you were writing anyone."

"Remember the conversation we had with that man in Lior?"

"John Fitzgerald, whose automail hand you fixed up?"

"Yes, him. You know how he told me there wasn't a mechanic for seventy miles since the mechanics died a year ago in the fighting?"

"And I suggested you set up shop there. Yes, I remember. But you refused."

* * *

"_You fixed his hand for free?" Ed asked._

"_'Fixed' is a strong word. I wouldn't even call it _functional_."_

"_You know, they don't have a mechanic around here."_

"_He told me."_

_Ed had to force the pace to slow down because she kept speeding up for who knew what reason. "They could use someone like you around here, Win."_

"_I thought about it for like three seconds, then I remembered Grandma. And the fact that we're halfway across the country and there's no way I'd move that far away from home. For anything."_

* * *

"So that's what the letter's about?" Ed guessed.

"I wrote the family of those mechanics about buying the property off of them. They have no use for all that automail stuff, after all. Pretty much I said, 'Name your price.'"

"So...?" Ed queried, setting the stack of letters down on the table and coming over to peer at the letter in her hands.

"They're giving it to me." She sounded surprised at what she was saying.

"For how much?"

"No. I mean, they're _giving_ it to me."

"For free? Wow."

"Here: 'In the wake of dealing with the passing of my husband and son, my daughter and I have been at a loss for what to do with their shared automail practice. Since their passing I have kept the shop empty and have done little other than deal with the minimal damage done to the shop during the remainder of the fighting. As a result, the shop is in good condition, if a little dusty. To keep their memory alive I have hesitated to sell the shop to someone who would convert it into something else, but your letter had given me hope that my husband's work will be continued in the name of helping people. In good faith I am willing to give you the deed to the shop for free, including all the tools and materials inside, as well as the upper 'living space' level of the shop, which I have already moved everything out of in favor of living with my daughter and her husband. I am aware that your town is far away from Lior so the transition might not be immediate, but whenever you are able to be in Lior next I will sign the deed over to you and the shop is yours.'" Winry had to take a breath after speedily reading the letter aloud. "This is amazing! Everything, all the tools, all the materials, completely free! Do you know how much that would cost if you bought it from scratch?"

"A lot?" he guessed.

"Upwards of two hundred thousand cenz, easy," she answered. "This lady is a saint!"

"So are you gonna take it, then?"

Winry stopped celebrating and became solemn. "I'll have to talk to Grandma, of course. And Al will want to know about it... and you! You approve, right?"

"Since when do you need _my_ approval to do anything, Winry?"

"I don't need anyone's _approval._ It's a free country. There's a difference between needing someone's approval and wanting it. I want yours."

"Fine, then. I approve." He drew out the O patronizingly.

"Oh, don't be like that," Winry pleaded. "I really want to know what you think."

"Think about what?" Pinako asked as she came in, reminding them that they weren't alone. "Winry, you haven't finished Mr. Sango's fingers yet. He needs his hand done by Thursday."

"Yes, I know," Winry responded, "But look what just came in the mail." She handed over the letter from Mr. Solomon's widow.

Pinako scanned over it, then raised an eyebrow at Winry. "Someone's giving you an automail shop in Lior?"

"The only two mechanics in Lior died in the riots that occurred after Cornello was sacked, and there isn't another mechanic within 70 miles of there. I wrote to ask how much she would take for the shop, Solomon and Son, and that's what she wrote back. What do you think, Grandma?"

"What do you want me to say? It's a good opportunity. You're sixteen, you're old enough to work, and whether you'll be able to handle an automail practice on your own, only experience will tell. I think you should take it."

Winry grinned broadly, obviously pleased. She turned to Ed. "What do you think?" He hadn't gotten a chance to answer earlier.

"Yeah. I mean... um, yeah, sure."

"Profound sentiments," Pinako said dully.

"C'mon, Ed," Winry sighed. "What do you _really_ think?"

"Again, it doesn't matter what I think," he muttered. "Dunno why you're asking me anyway."

"You're no help at all," she complained.

"Yes, I said yeah, didn't I?" he shot back. "Just do it, I mean. Yeah... Well, I'm going to go upstairs now. I forgot... uh, something. Gotta go get it..." He trailed off, then hurried upstairs before anyone could stop him.

"Ed, where are you going?" Winry called after him.

"Who cares? It's quieter when he's gone," Meta shouted through the open door of her bedroom.

"SHUT UP!" Ed shouted downstairs. "LITTLE GIRL!" he added as an afterthought.

"SHORTY!"

"BABY!"

"PIPSQUEAK!"

"DIAPER SOILER!"

"PLATFORM SHOE-WEARER!"

"It's never quiet around here, is it?" Al asked as he walked in the front door and discovered that the house was in the throes of a multi-room screaming match.

"Never," Winry laughed. "And you always end up coming in just as the noisiness reaches its climax."

"WINRY! MAKE LITTLE TYKE SHUT UP DOWN THERE!"

"DO IT YOURSELF!" she screamed.

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING TYKE, SHORTY!"

"This is why I spend most of my time in the basement," Pinako commented as she left the kitchen and headed there.

"Hungry, Al?" asked Winry. "You missed dinner. Honestly I don't know how you could stand to stay outside in the heat that long. We were all dying, and we were _inside_."

"I... had a distraction."

* * *

"_Look at this, Al." _

"_What is it?" Al walked over to where Luna was crouched by the bank of the river and peered in. "I don't see anything." _

"_Watch." She stuck her bare foot in the water and stirred the sediment at the bottom, causing a cloud of dirt to float up, cloud the water around her foot, then gradually settle out again. "What do you see?" _

"_Cloudy water?" _

"_A volcanic eruption," she corrected. Sticking her foot in again, this time Luna spun her foot around so the cloud of dirt funneled before spreading out. "Now?" _

"_You, spinning the dirt around." _

"_It's a twister." She removed her foot from the water and wiped some of the water away with the hem of her long pioneer skirt. "I think I'll write a poem about weather and earth phenomena tonight." _

"_Why tonight?" Al asked. "Why not now?"_

"_Because it's too hot today. And I have something else planned." _

"_What's your other plan?" _

"_Are you a strong swimmer?" She seized his wrist and dragged him, fully clothed, through the shallows and into the middle of the river._

* * *

"No," Al said after a moment of distracted thought. "I didn't have so much of a problem with the heat." The problem he _had_ run into was trying to be a gentleman about swimming with a pretty (if quirky) girl his age while her light cream-colored blouse was soaked through. She had made no attempt at covering herself, either—but then Luna wasn't a reluctant sort of person. She said and did whatever came to mind.

* * *

"_I swear, if you watch people's faces you can find out all sorts of things about their personalities. For example, right now, you're getting annoyed with my going off on tangents, but you're trying to be patient because you're worried about your brother and you need to know what I know." She sat __down on the floor, placing her palms flat on the wood, and did a brief handstand, which she almost immediately fell out of. "I can never get the hang of those."_

"_Luna, if you know so much about my thoughts just by reading my face, why can't you just tell me what I want to know?" Al refused to get pulled away from the subject at hand._

"_Straightforwardness isn't my style?" she suggested, and just like that her mind was off in another direction. "I wonder what it's like to lose one's virginity."_

"_I wouldn't know," Al said, turning slightly pink in the ears. "Luna, can you _please _try to focus for a minute?" Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth!_

* * *

"Well, are you hungry?" Winry repeated.

"Uh, no, I ate," he said distractedly. "Where's Brother?"

"Upstairs—oh, but don't run up there just yet, Al. I have something I wanted to tell you about."

"What's that?" he asked warily.

Winry explained about the automail shop in Lior. "So what do you think?"

"It's a great opportunity."

"That's what Grandma said, too."

"What did Brother say?"

Winry's teeth worried her bottom lip. "I didn't get the feeling that he was so confident about his answer."

"What do you mean? He wouldn't tell you what he really thought?"

"Exactly."

Al was quiet for a minute, running the implications through his mind. "I'll talk to him, Winry," he assured her, then he gave her a small hug. "Don't look so worried, okay? You've got a good thing going here, don't let Ed spoil you on it."

Winry gave a short, edgy laugh. "I won't," she promised.

* * *

"Brother? Are you pouting in here?" Al knocked, a token gesture, and let himself in.

"No, I'm not."

"What was up with the evasion you pulled on Winry? She was upset."

"Well, damn. I just keep making things worse."

"What was the problem?"

"Honestly, I don't know… I don't like the idea of her living far away, but I can't for the life of me figure out why that bugs me. It's frustrating." Ed sighed loudly.

Al couldn't help laughing a little.

"What's funny?"

"It's just that we've kinda done that to _her_ over and over again. It's like a taste of our own medicine."

"This isn't funny, Al, it's just distressing. I don't understand why you're laughing."

"Just the irony, Brother, that's all."

Ed grimaced. "Not funny enough, especially when I'm in this sour mood."

Al sat next to Ed on the edge of the bad. "Then I'm sorry for laughing at you, if you're offended."

There was a long silence during which Ed alternated between moping at his perceived cares and fuming at himself for even caring so much. "And what about you?" he asked finally. "What do you think of her leaving?"

Al shrugged. "Happy for her, I guess. As I told her, it's a great opportunity. Sure, I'm kinda sad because we've only _just_ been able to stay in one place and now it's _Winry_ that's going away, but it's not the end of the world. You're acting as if we'll never see her again. They've got trains, Brother. We've got time and money enough to see her fairly whenever we want. And anyway, pouting in your room isn't going to solve anything. If it did I have a feeling people would get a lot more done in life!"

"Ha, _ha_."

Al elbowed him. "Enough. You said you're not pouting but you're pouting."

"Hey, what's the deal with you and the freak? Are you sucking her face in the woods every day or what?"

"What?"

"Are you two together? You and Luna."

"No, of course not!"

"Then why are you with her so often?"

"Where is this all coming from?" Al asked, still reeling from the sudden change in topic.

"I don't know," Ed admitted. "Suddenly popped into my head. Meta thinks you guys are together, so I figured I'd ask next time I had you cornered and alone."

Al snorted a little at that explanation. "Tell her nothing's going on. I don't see why you have to become involved."

"Mei will be cross with you," Ed teased.

"Mei had an annoying unrequited crush on me and now she lives in a foreign country and we'll probably never see her again. She's not a concern, Brother."

Ed grimaced, finding that trying to coax a rise out of Al wasn't working too well. "Okay, fine. If you and Luna were doing something shady would you tell me?"

Al quirked an eyebrow. "Just like you told me about yourself and Winry?"

Ed turned five different shades of crimson. "Oh, c'mon—that's different!—You already knew!"

"Oh, not so different though, is it?" Al continued, giving Ed a little nudge.

"It's _very_ different!"

"Your defensive tone tells another story, big brother."

"Just—_you!_" Ed stuttered in consternation, standing up. "You're a sneaky little bugger, Al! And here I thought I was winning for a second!" Ed stormed out of the room in half-feigned annoyance.

"What's there to _win?_" Al asked in his wake.

* * *

**Nice, long chapter. I am appreciating not posting daily as I did for ENAT (the first). Reviews make me write more! (And if you have the time, check out my other FMA fics! PARALLEL is really interesting (to me at least) but there isn't much enthusiasm for that one and honestly I really like writing it. PARALLEL is what I write when I get a block on this fic, here, so lots of little plot nuances that won't fit in this fic end up there. Sorry for the shameless advertising.) (Oh, but while I'm at it, check out When He Says Hi, which is pretty epic as well. And is almost complete with only four chapters, so a nice short read. Bookmark it and read next time it rains where you live.)**

**Of course, I don't own FMA, and please review!**


	3. Train Station Goodbye

**This chapter is short compared to the others, but whatever, right?**

**I'm sorry, I'm pissed right now. My mom want me to go to the beach, fun right? No. I hate sand, I hate surf, I hate sun(burn). Imagine Ed going off on someone for calling him short, then multiply that by eight zillion 'cause I'm a woman and you'll have an idea of how pissed off I am. What's more, there is no computer at the beach. I don't have an iPod or a CD player, so not only can I not type up chapters, I can't listen to my music. I will have two things I can do while I am at the beach: homework, or 'hanging out' with my family, which is the nice way of saying my mother will be relaxing and drinking Diet Coke while my sisters play in the water and every time there's a fight, injury, etc. which requires adult intervention, I will get sent over to fix it. And while I'm not being the babies' supervisor, my mother will be lecturing me about how I'm a computer addict and THIS IS FUN, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU FOR NOT ENJOYING IT.**

**And behavioral analyst people wonder why teenagers have violent tendencies! It's not VIDEO GAMES, you lunatics! Games and computers aren't the SOURCE of violent tendencies, they're the OUTLET. Fuck. I want to smash, tear, crush, or otherwise annihilate something in my mother's likeness. Excuse me while I go cry and/or contemplate suicide. Oh, and by the way, here's your chapter. Expect nothing else until Wednesday-ish, not because I'm getting lazy, but because at this rate that's how long I'll be grounded. (Which is sad because I have four or five FMA drabbles rotting in my Document Manager waiting to be posted as well.)**

* * *

"Alright, Al, you ready?"

"Yeah, I had forgotten how much stuff I need to take with me now that I'm not a suit of armor anymore." Al readjusted the suitcase in his hands and hurried down the stairs after his older brother, who was already ready to go.

Two days after Winry had left to check out the property and get it ready for habitation and reopening, and already Ed was getting restless. After three days he'd called Central to ask (more like beg) for a mission, and on the fourth day Hawkeye (doing Mustang's work) had called and offered Ed a missing-persons case in a small town ten miles northwest of East City.

When Ed saw that Al was packed as well, he poked his head into the living room, where Joli, Meta, and Eli were splayed across the floor, looking like a crime scene. "Goodbye," he said pointedly. "Don't set the house on fire."

"Inside joke," Al said when Eli just looked at them.

"See you when we see you," said Eli, managing a lethargic wave.

"Yer'all idiots for catching a train in this heat," Meta muttered, half asleep.

"Bye-bye!" said Joli, who disregarded her siblings' summer exhaustion and got up to hug Ed and Al goodbye.

"Quick, let's get out of here before they figure out we're ditching them," Ed stage-whispered.

* * *

"Your freak girlfriend-but-not-girlfriend is coming down the road."

"She's not a freak, Brother, you're so rude."

"She's a freak. It's not my fault you're blind to her freakness."

"Freak_ish_ness?" Al suggested.

"I stand by the word I just invented," Ed replied curtly.

"Alphonse!" Luna called, waving him over. Al slowed, but Ed didn't, and Al had to speed up to keep up, so Luna fell into step beside Al. "I've got something exciting to tell you before you leave again."

"What's that?" Al asked.

"Oh, sound excited about the freak's news," Ed muttered.

"I've fallen in love with someone," Luna told Al, ignoring Ed.

"Really?" said Al in surprise.

"He's _aghast_," Ed said, throwing his arms out dramatically.

"We're having a whirlwind romance," said Luna matter-of-factly.

"Who's the poor sap?" Ed asked.

"I can't tell you."

Ed snorted. "Because he doesn't exist."

"He most certainly _does!_" she shot back indignantly. "Our love is forbidden and he is afraid to express it—"

"In other words, you're making it up."

"—Because he's going on a long voyage soon—"

"Oh, _poor_ you!"

"—But when he comes back we'll be able to be together."

"Riveting," Ed said dully.

"Enough!" Al elbowed Ed sharply. "Luna, I don't know who pressed Ed's 'mean' button today but honestly he's not usually this rude."

"It's okay, Al. I know your brother's an insufferable prick. I don't mind. It's you I'm talking to anyway, so he might as well not be here."

"Comforting," Ed inserted, "I'm glad I'm not actually within ten feet of your freakness. I was worried I might catch it."

"Brother!" Al glared, taking offense when Luna would not.

"So, Al, the real reason I came wasn't to tell you about my new lover. It's to bid you adieu, seeing as you're leaving town again." She said 'leaving town' with appropriate disdain, because she had always been convinced of the perfection of Resembool and she didn't understand why anyone would ever want to leave.

"Well, I wish you and your lover good fortune," Al said, even though he didn't sound like that was what he wished. "And thanks for coming to say goodbye."

"She _bids us adieu_," Ed mocked in a dramatic whisper. They were coming up on the train station now, so Ed was intent on driving Luna away before they got there.

Without warning, Luna produced a black-and-white marble notebook and hit Ed over the head as hard as she could with it.

"What was _that_?" he complained, rubbing the crown of his head. _Why does every girl I talk to do this to me?_

"You only respond to violence," Luna explained. "Also, I must say it was very self-gratifying."

Al couldn't help laughing.

"_Al_!"

"Sorry, Brother, it's just funny!" he defended.

Ed scowled and walked faster to get ahead of them so he wouldn't have to participate in the conversation.

"Are you really having a 'whirlwind romance'?" Al asked when Ed was gone.

"No," she admitted. "Well, yes, but it's sorta one-sided."

"Oh..." Al didn't know how to respond to that. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you sorry? It's not your fault."

"I just... you know... wanted to make you feel better?"

"What for? I never said I was sad."

"But..." Al sighed and gave up trying to understand. "Okay, then."

"Well, there's the train," said Luna, pointing as it rolled into the station. Ed was already on the platform, tapping his foot impatiently and waiting for the doors to open. "I guess you'd better get going and catch up with your brother."

"I'm sorry for the way he acted."

"I've had worse," she said seriously. She opened her mouth, hesitating to say something else, then gave up and lifted her hand for a little wave so Al would know he was dismissed. However, when he turned to leave, passing her a little sad smile as he did, but suddenly Luna stopped him by grabbing his arm. "Wait."

"What's up?" he asked.

"Umm... Here." From between her breasts Luna removed what appeared to be a gothically decorated metal egg attached to a long chain. She usually put strongly scented dried herbs and potpourri-type objects in the hollow exterior, and the result was that she smelled like something new and interesting every day. Today she had filled the egg with cinnamon sticks which had been snapped in half to fit.

Cinnamon was the scent she had had inside the egg when Al had first met her on the road a few weeks ago and they had become friends. It was also the smell Al associated with all the happy things that had happened since he'd gotten his body back, and even though Luna didn't know the whole story he knew she had figured out more than she let on. The cinnamon was no coincidence.

"Keep it," she instructed him. "And bring it back whenever you come home."

Al looked at the egg and chain she'd pressed into his hand, then back at her honest face. _Say something intelligent,_ he told himself.

"Okay."

_Crud._

* * *


	4. Flustered

**Short chapter, which is why I'm free to post it only a day after I posted the last one. The next few chapters will be short as well, as I develop the story primarily though Ed, Winry, Al, and Luna's correspondence. Two letters per chapter, a chapter a day-- don't like? Don't read. But please review if you do like it!**

* * *

_Dear Winry, _

No, that wasn't right. Ed crossed it out and started again.

_Winry, _

_You don't know how idiotic it feels to be writing a letter to you. After all the years Al and I spent never writing you a single one, and it's been barely a week and you're all I can think about._

That came out wrong. He scribbled over his words again.

_It's really Al's fault I'm writing at all. As soon as he got on the train he got this urge to start writing to Luna (who he'd just walked away from minutes before), and he said he's going to send it when we get there. It was irritating when he wouldn't let me see what he was writing, so pretty soon he 'suggested' (note the quotations) that I write a letter to you._

Oh, but he hadn't told her about why they were on the train in the first place.

_I meant to call you but then I forgot, so... sorry about that. So here's what happened: I was crazy bored after you left and Granny was getting concerned that Meta was going to murder me or vice versa, (hey, I told you it was a bad idea to take those kids in! They're as fun as hay fever and as soothing as pushing Sisyphus' stone). I called Central and asked if they had any missions for me and the day later Colonel Hawkeye called and gave me a missing-persons case up near East City. So that's why we're on this train in the first place. _

Now what? Ed scowled at the paper, then looked up and scowled a bit at Al, the 'inspiration' for this letter, then scowled at the paper again. He was in a scowly mood.

_I've been thinking about you a lot lately._

Again, he'd screwed it up! Ed scribbled violently. Another hole tore through the paper. _Whoops._

_So what's up with you?_

Ah, that was much better.

_How is it going up in Lior? Did the shop setup go okay? Have you cleaned everything up in here and started accepting customers? I bet you'll have a lot of people coming in once you open. Seeing as you're the only_

'Only'? Well, that sure made him sound like an ass. As if he didn't think she could get customers on her own merits.

_I bet you'll have a lot of people coming in once you're open. Seeing as you're the best _

No! Now I sounded like a cliché compliment, the kind of thing people like Roy used to get into womens' pants.

"Geez, Brother, don't give yourself a brain hemorrhage. Just say what you have to say," Al commented as Ed once again took to furiously scratching out his words.

"It's harder than it looks," he snapped, grimacing.

"Yeah, right. You're just censoring yourself, aren't you?"

"Wha...? N-... n-... nuh-uh!"

"And regressing," Al teased. "But seriously, Brother, you're tearing holes in the paper. Are you really going to mail that letter in that condition?"

"I'll recopy it or something," he mumbled grudgingly, then went back to staring at the pen, as if waiting for it to give him an idea.

_I guess what I'm trying to say is I hope everything's going well for you _

No!

_And how did the moving in go? I was surprised by how much stuff you had to relocate. It was like you were heading to another country! Wow, that's an uncomfortable thought. I'm glad you didn't move out of the country when I told you to, before the Promised Day when I was worried we weren't going to be able to stop the homunculi. It's easier to beat myself up for even considering it, but that's all hindsight. Back then, the thought that you and Grandma might get caught in the middle of it was_

"Fuck!" Ed snatched up a new piece of paper and started over from the beginning, copying out only the usable parts of the letter. "I can't do this right!"

"What did I tell you?" Al chided. "I swear, Brother, you're going to give yourself an ulcer."

"Like I care," he responded. "Bring it on."

"Bring what on? Digestive issues?" Al chuckled. "You're so flustered with trying to write that thing, you don't even sound like yourself." Al went back to writing his own letter.

"Flustered... good word choice."


	5. June 20

**Umm, actually I don't have much to say of this chapter. In about fifteen minutes I'm gonna disconnect from the Internet and head out on a three-hour car ride, so I gotta make this AN quick so I can post the chapter. I don't own FMA; please review!**

* * *

_Dear Luna, _

_Is it silly of me that I got on the train, then immediately grabbed pen and paper and started writing to you? Maybe not so silly, now that I give it a little more thought. But only because it's you that I'm writing to. Anyone else and it WOULD seem odd._

_Brother won't leave me alone. He thinks I'm an idiot for being your friend, of course, so it's understandable that he doesn't get why I would want to write to you. There, I just told him to write a letter to Winry, that ought to keep him occupied. _

_I can't apologize enough for the way he acted at the station. I know you get harassed a lot (you've explained that to me plenty of times) and I know you said you've had worse but, that's my own BROTHER. I was appalled that he had that kind of hostility in him! And I can't begin to imagine how hard it must be to be you. I'm so sorry... When I'm done writing this letter I'll give him a good long lecture. (Doubt it'll do any good. Brother's as hardheaded as they come.)_

_Actually though, right now he's being kind of funny. As I'm trying to write, he keeps writing one or two sentences in little stints, then he'll glare at the paper for a few seconds and cross out half of what he's just written. Either he can't decide what to say, or he knows what he wants to say and he won't let himself SAY it. It's kind of pathetic to watch. _

_I'll have to wait until the train stops over in East City to post this letter, but that's okay. At least waiting until then will mean I can write a return address on the envelope and you can reply to this one instead of having to wait until we get settled._

_Thank you for letting me keep your necklace... you knew about the cinnamon, didn't you?_

_~Alphonse E._

Okay, so maybe Luna's test hadn't worked as well as she'd _hoped_ it would, but it had least worked as well as she'd _thought_ it would. And the fact that Al had written this letter almost immediately after leaving her side (according to him) was an excellent sign! Luna sat down to write her reply, but quickly, because she had to go feed an imaginary walrus on Oak Avenue before it got angry and caused a thunderstorm.

* * *

_Winry, _

_You don't know how idiotic it feels to be writing a letter to you. I've never really written a letter at all! Sad, isn't it, that I've been a fixture on this earth for more than a decade and a half and I've never written a real letter. And this one is shit anyway, so it barely counts._

_It's really Al's fault I'm writing at all. As soon as he got on the train he got this urge to start writing to Luna (who he'd just walked away from minutes before), and he said he's going to send it when we get there. It was irritating when he wouldn't let me see what he was writing, so pretty soon he 'suggested' (note the quotations) that I write a letter to you. (Now I'm wondering if this wasn't such a good idea.)_

_I meant to call you but then I forgot, so... sorry about that. So here's what happened: I was crazy bored after you left and Granny was getting concerned that Meta was going to murder me or vice versa, (hey, I told you it was a bad idea to take those kids in! They're as fun as hay fever and as soothing as pushing Sisyphus' stone). I called Central and asked if they had any missions for me and the day later Colonel Hawkeye called and gave me a missing-persons case up near East City. So that's why we're on this train in the first place. Uh, and I guess that's all for now. About myself, at least._

_So what's up with you? How is it going up in Lior? Did that widow lady hand you over the deed all right? No legal hangups, I hope? Did the setup go okay? Have you cleaned everything up in there and started accepting customers? And how did the moving in go? I was surprised by how much stuff you had to relocate. It was like you were heading to another country._

_Uh, that's all._

_Edw_

_Hell, you know who wrote this._

_P.S. As I'm sending this to you, Al and I have already gotten to our destination, so it's a little late. We're safe and all, no freak accidents (and that's a shocker, given how disaster-prone I seem to be) and the return address on this envelope is the correct one, so if... yeah._

Winry bit her lip against the smile that spread irrepressibly across her features. It was obvious that he had spent a lot of thought on this, and too much energy. And at the bottom margin of the page, she could just make out the words he had hastily written, then changed his mind at the last minute and scratched over: "I miss you."

Ed had never written to her, never even come close as far as she knew. What it must have cost him to write this, she had no idea. So even though she had a million things to do in the shop, it would be a disservice not to respond.


	6. June 26

_Dear Alphonse, _

_I knew you would catch that. To answer your question, yes, I did put the cinnamon in there on purpose. You probably haven't noticed (I have though), but on days when I have cinnamon in the egg, you spend about 30% more time within a foot of me. But not in the creepy, stalkerish way. Anyway, I knew you had a thing for that scent. Tell me, why is that?_

_I've told you already, I get lots of flak from people who want me to fit their definition of normal. I won't do it, I can't actually, so whatever they say just rolls right off my back. Your brother's no exception. Honestly, Al, I've gotten so much worse for just being myself. You shouldn't be so concerned about what Ed says to me. I couldn't care less about what he thinks. And I don't think any less of him for not liking me. It's the 'normal' thing to do, after all. _

_So, the fact that I've received the letter means you've gotten to East City okay, then? I've never been to the city before. I've spent my whole life out in the country—not that I don't love Resembool! But I am curious about it. I think when I'm older I'll move to the city, just to get a feel for what it's like. You should send me a postcard, that'd be neat. _

_I wrote another poem the other day... well, I mean, I write a lot of poems, of course, but this one was especially inspired. By my lover, you remember me telling you about him? Well, I didn't want to enclose it for fear someone else (read: your older brother) might try to read it over your shoulder and that would ruin the privacy of it, of course, but you must remember to remind me to show it to you when you come home again (I will forget otherwise). _

_Signed, Luna Helena Sisley Turner: turtle and goat admirer; missing her scented egg necklace; currently in the midst of a beautiful one-sided whirlwind romance; eater of spaghetti dinners on occasion._

_

* * *

_

_Dear Ed, _

_(Ha, I almost wrote 'Edward'! Weird huh? I guess I have a habit of sounding more formal in letters.)_

_Everything is going fine here, with the shop and all. It took a bit longer than I expected to get the shop ready and the upper level habitable, but it still didn't take as much time as it would have taken to start an automail shop from scratch. And really the most labor-intensive thing I had to do was cleaning out all the smelting equipment, and Grandma makes me do that at home anyway. _

_The first day after I opened the shop, it was super full! It turns out Mr. Fitzgerald had told everyone about my work, and then Mr. Solomon's widow let it leak that I was coming up here, so people had been actually waiting on my arrival for several weeks! As a result, I'm now completely booked solid for almost the rest of next month. It's pretty crazy around here. _

_You've got a missing persons case to work on? What happened?_

_You didn't cross out those last words on the paper well enough. It's okay though... I miss you too._

_Winry R~_


	7. June 29

**Not entirely sure if next chapter will be tomorrow or the day after. It depends on whether it ends up being more than a thousand words once I type it all. If more than a thousand, it'll be posted on Thursday, and if less, it'll be posted tomorrow. So we'll see how that goes. **

**We're coming up on a sudden plot twist which will result in a lot of anxiety and an even bigger helping of angst. No character is safe!** **You'll see what I mean very soon. Please review if you read! And I don't own FMA.  


* * *

**

_Luna, _

_I get a kick out of the fact that you actually had a percentage for the amount of time I spend within a foot of you. THAT'S the real creepy stalkerish thing. (No, not really. I'm just teasing, ha ha.)_

_Just like you asked, I'm sending this letter on a postcard of East City. The downside of that is that I have to squish my writing VERY TINY to fit on here... sorry if it's illegible._

_You should keep the poem dog-eared in your notebook or something. Just in case I forget too._

_Ed and I are going to do a stakeout on the kidnapper tonight. Wish us luck._

_Alphonse E

* * *

_

_Winry, _

_Oops. About the I miss you thing... I was in a hurry to seal the envelope and mail it but I changed my mind and then changed my mind again and again and again until I didn't really know WHAT I wanted to say so I just gave up and crossed it out entirely. But apparently not well enough. _:l_ Sorry about that. (You can call me an idiot later... Well, whenever I see you next.)_

_It sounds like such a pain to be booked working on automail for a whole month. Won't you get bored? I would... but then again, you're such an obsessive automail otaku I'm sure you could continuously build automail limbs for a hundred years straight and not get sick of it. (That's not a compliment.) So things are going well then? You're not bored out of your skull or anything? That's good then._

_Are you really interested in this case we're on? It's pretty straightforward. Well, not exactly, but kinda... (Uh, I have no idea what I'm going on about in the preceding sentences). Anyway, the thing is, this kidnapper seems like a pretty insane guy, he leaves us funny 'clues'. Tufts of animal hair strewn across the floor of the bedroom of the kidnapped person, 42 decks of playing cards stacked in 312 stacks of seven cards each (We found those in the bathroom of the hotel room where one of the kidnapped women was staying), and once we found seventeen shopping bags full of ladies' underwear (the really weird, 'sexy' kind, with lace and frills in places where it can't possibly be comfortable, you know the type). So far, seven people have gone missing, all petite, female, and redheaded. Most were tourists, all were traveling/living alone, and all visited what the people in this town call the "Blue Square" (I haven't yet figured out why that district is called that) the evening before they disappeared. It's a real specific profile, so that'll be helpful to us. We're going to do a 'stakeout,' doesn't that sound cool? It's not. Action movies LIE. Nothing happens on a stakeout, believe me._

_Guess who._


	8. Unwanted Affections

**It turns out this chapter is only 800 words (It was 2 1/2 pages handwritten) so I'm giving it to y'all today. Next chapter is over 1,000 so it'll be day after tomorrow. Next chapter, the plot thickens! You'll see what I mean by the end of this chapter, which is, unfortunately, vaguely cliffhanger-ish. I'm sorry! Please be nice and review anyway! (I don't own FMA.)  
**

* * *

"Hello, beautiful," he called out into the shop to announce his arrival. "Have you missed me?"

Not much. But Winry wasn't going to tell him that. She didn't want to scare her customers off, even the irrestrainable Charles "But Pretty Girls Like You Can Call Me Chuck" Sorano. "I'm in the back," she called out. "Just a sec. I'm finishing your automail right now."

"Crunch time," he called back to her, his voice coming through the shop and entering the back part, where the real magic happened. "You work so hard, Win. Should I come back later?"

Winry shuddered a little at the sound of her nickname on Charles' lips. The last person who'd called her that was Ed. It sounded wrong coming from anyone else, especially the overtly flirtatious and Roy Mustang-esque boy who wouldn't have been allowed within a foot of Winry if he wasn't missing one. "I'm on a very tight schedule," she told him, "and your appointment is right now. If I postpone it, everyone in the queue gets pushed back. Take a seat, Charles—"

"Chuck."

"—and I'll be done in just a few minutes."

"Oh, trying to get rid of me quickly, are you?"

Yes. "No." Winry screwed in the final cover quickly, then picked up the foot and brought it over. Charles was relaxing, having claimed a seat on top of the front counter, right next to the padlocked black cashbox. "All right, brace yourself, Charles—"

"Chuck."

"—this will hurt." She removed his old, cruddy automail foot with a quick toggle of the release, then put that aside and gave him a moment to prepare for the nerve reconnection.

"All right, ready," he said, sounding a little less confident and cocky than before.

"One... two... three!"

Charles clenched his fists and let out a pained hiss. After a second, it was over, and he visibly relaxed. "Damn, that hurts."

"Everyone hates the moment when the nerves get connected. Okay, try moving it."

Charles wiggled his toes. "Works fine. You're way better than old man Solomon was at this."

"Thanks." She couldn't help sounding pleased, even though the compliment was empty.

"Go out with me tonight." It wasn't a question.

Winry sighed loudly. "Maybe it's time you went home."

"C'mon, Win. After the pain of attaching my foot? You owe me one."

"More like _you_ owe _me_ one." Winry went to her desk and shuffled through her papers until she located Charles' bill. "Five thousand ones. How do you plan on paying, Mr. Sorano?"

"Goodwill and a few assorted sexual favors?"

"Seriously."

Charles sighed loudly, pulled out his wallet, and started counting out bills. "I'll give you 1,250 now, and the rest next month." Winry reached for the money in his hand, but he lifted his arm high so she couldn't reach. "Go out with me." Again, not a question.

_Dammit,_ Winry thought. _At least when I'm with a short guy he can't play these games with me._ "I'm married," she informed him impatiently.

"Huh?"

Winry smiled to herself. _Inside joke. _

It didn't take Charles long to deduce that she was lying, and then he put on a cocky grin (completely unlike Ed's teasing smirk, the one that made Winry unable to not smile). "Well, Mrs. Rockbell, I don't see your husband anywhere around here." He put his hand over his brow, squinted, and turned his head both ways as if searching for Winry's husband. "I think the coast is clear, Win."

"He's not in town right now," Winry informed him.

"Where is he?" Charles asked, still playing along.

"His job makes him travel a lot. He's in a little town near East City with his brother, doing a missing-persons investigation. He's a very jealous guy, Charles—"

"Chuck."

"—and if I write to him he won't hesitate to come down here and give you a piece of his mind."

Charles chuckled, unfazed. "Then don't write to him. Your boyfriend doesn't have to know." He hopped down from the counter and sidled up to Winry, pulling her close with an arm around her waist. "What do you say, beautiful?"

Winry froze. "Hands off, _now._" There was something white-hot in her tone that made Charles obey. He handed her the money and backed away, preparing for the explosion. But it never came. Winry went to the cashbox and unlocked it to put the money away. "Come back in six months or if you have any malfunctions."

As Charles was walking out the door (a little bell rang when he opened it), he stopped, paused for a minute, then reopened the door.  
"I have another customer coming in fifteen minutes," Winry said in a _this-better-be-worth-your-life_ voice.

"You didn't pick up the paper this morning," he said. "You ought to read it today—there's this really good editorial..." He trailed off, opening Winry's newspaper and rustling through it to find what he was looking for. "Here." He tapped the article he wanted her to read, then slid it across the counter. "You're from the south, aren't you?"


	9. Editorial

**I'm going to the Poconos for spring break. I don't even know what they are. Or why we're going, either. Or, most importantly, if I'll be able to post new chapters. (And I can't even have one of my friends log into my account and post them for me from my Doc Manager, because they're handwritten and I have to type them still.) So this chapter is getting posted a day early even though I said it'd be on Friday, but don't hold your breath for updates until Monday. (I know I said that last weekend too and it didn't pan out to be true, but this time I'm serious.) At least this chapter is good.**

**I don't own FMA. Please review.**

* * *

EDITORIAL 

How the Aerugean Black/White Fever Reflects on the Armstrong Administration

Jessica Crichton

As any moderately informed civilian or fourth-grader can tell you, the Aerugean Black/White Fever is an epidemic that we see recur every decade or so south of the border. Amestris rarely, if ever, gets involved, and in fact the Bradley administration expressly forbade Amestrian doctors from doing anything to aid the Aerugeans during the crisis. The Bradley administration got a lot of media criticism because of this decision.

However, the consequences of assisting the Aerugeans with the fever is already becoming abundantly clear, as the epidemic spreads north and crosses Amestrian borders, causing many southern Amestrians to question the competency of the Armstrong administration—not a good sign, so soon after the new Fuhrer has taken office, and especially in light of the 'Parliament' fiasco that's going on in Central right now, as 'democracy' flails in the Fuhrer's offices.

"I'm alarmed with the rate at which this fever is traveling north," said a Rush Valley resident who wished not to be named. "I understand the Fuhrer's good intentions, but maybe she ought to ensure the safety of our own citizens before she sends good Amestrian doctors across the border."

"We're going to end up dying [...] for these foreigners," his wife added. In these trying times, this sentiment is heard in whispers all across the country.

The question on everyone's lips is this: How can the Fuhrer sit back as Aerugeans bring this deadly fever into her homeland, yet still have the gall to ship our own doctors south as the need for them AT HOME steadily increases?

And the Armstrong administration's answer: Today, 500 more doctors and a whopping 2,000 volunteers are being sent into Aerugo.

Whose side is Fuhrer Armstrong on, anyway?

* * *

_Dear Ed,_

_Have you seen this paper yet? I'm attaching it to the letter on the off chance you haven't. I didn't even know the fever had gotten into the country until I read this! I'm worried now, actually that something so seemingly huge can go by so unnoticed. There's very little media attention given to the issue, as far as I can tell. I'm writing to Grandma as well, to make sure they're okay. How far north has the fever gotten, anyway? I don't know much, (what does it even DO?) but if the fever gets far enough north it'll hit Resembool, won't it? Scary thought. If I don't get a response from Grandma by next Wednesday, I'm going home—hang the automail shop, you know? The family and our hometown is more important._

_~Winry R. _

_P.S. If I get a letter back from Grandma before Wednesday, I'll call your hotel and leave a message there so you know that it says. I wouldn't want you and Al to be kept in the dark, either. _

_P.P.S. Show the attached article to Al as well, please. He should know about this.

* * *

_

"...Wow," said Al after he finished reading the editorial. "...This is... incredibly distressing."

"Leaves you a little bit speechless, doesn't it?" Ed asked while he was rereading Winry's letter. "Winry is pretty panicked as well. What day of the week is it, Al?"

"Uhh, Tuesday?" Al hazarded a guess uncertainly. "Might be Monday. I lose track of time. How come the editorial refers to it as the black-slash-white fever, anyway?"

"Political correctness," Ed said absently, picking up the in-room telephone and dialing to the front desk.

"'Political'... what?"

"Just a sec." Ed held up a shushing finger. "Hi," he said into the telephone after a moment. "Can you tell me if there have been any messages left for Edward Elric or Alphonse Elric in Room 104?" He waited for a long time, then pressed his lips together unhappily and gave a snappish "thank you" before hanging up. "No messages, but if it's really Tuesday then we don't have to worry until tomorrow. Now, what were you asking about, Al? The fever...?"

"What did you mean about political correctness?"

"I read about the Aerugean fever somewhere once. So the thing about this fever is that somehow or other it alters melanin production. So your hair and skin and eyes would literally change colors if you had it. Not permanently, obviously, 'cause that would require deep genetic alterations that just don't happen with this kind of plague. Anyway, the color change happens during its incubation period, so you can tell if you have it before the actual fever starts and you die. There are actually two strains of the Aerugean fever, one that makes your hair and skin and eyes turn lighter,—that's the White Fever bit—and then other strain makes your hair and skin get darker, thus the Black Fever. Other than that, the Black and White fevers are exactly the same and they come at the same time. When you get Aerugean fever, it seems that the whiteness or blackness is just random selection. Rumor is that the White Fever has a higher survival rate, but it hasn't been proven."

"I see," said Al. "So the author of the editorial was making the point that the Black and White Fever is the same thing, because calling it one or the other wouldn't be 'politically correct.'"

"Right."

"So just how far north is this fever getting?" Al wondered aloud, re-scanning the article in his hand. "There's a Rush Valley citizen quoted here, but the fever can't possibly have gotten _that_ far north already, can it?"

"I dunno, they're not really reporting on it here for some reason," said Ed as he sat down to write a reply to Winry's letter. "I'd imagine not. That would mean the epidemic was spreading at, almost literally, a mile a minute."

* * *

**Ominous ending line. I wish I could play background music. ("Dun dun da dunnn!")**


	10. Scenario

**Please point out any uncorrected typos here in your reviews, because I haven't had a chance to reread this chapter since I wrote it. Today is my only day of Internet access until late Monday night, and while I can use my brother's stolen satellite phone Internet to read my reviews on my email, I can't log onto FF. net because I can't operate the captcha on the login page froma phone. So here's your chapter and I'm really sorry if next chapter isn't on time. **

**Please review!**

* * *

The panicked call came midmorning on Wednesday (after mail delivery, Ed and Al assumed).

"Hello?"

She started ranting right away. "Eight days! How long does it take to get a letter? I told her to call as soon as she got it, no matter what! This is important! No, this is bad news. I know it. Oh God, what do we do?"

"Panic?" Ed suggested sarcastically.

"I already AM!"

Al wasn't even close to the phone but he could still hear Winry crystal clear because of her unnecessarily high decibel level. "She's beyond jokes, Brother. Let me guess, Granny didn't call?"

"Apparently not," Ed said to him in an aside, then he spoke into the receiver again. "Calm down, Winry. The fact that she hasn't called or written a reply doesn't mean that anything's happened."

"No news is good news," Al said.

"Yeah, no news is good news," Ed repeated into the phone.

"No news isn't good news when THE news is reporting 18% casualties in the areas who've taken direct hits. EIGHTEEN PERCENT, Ed, do you know how many people that is? MORE THAN ZERO, that's what! The headline today was, 'Fever Smashes Epidemic Records.' Sounds a little fucking ominous, Ed!"

"Please try to calm down and stop yelling in my ear," he said, keeping his tone unruffled so she would realize it wasn't the end of the world. "Look, here's what we're going to do: You get on the next train to East City and we'll meet you at the station. You can stay with Al and me in our room. We'll call everyone we can in Resembool and try to get some news. If nothing comes of that by Friday, I promise we'll catch the next train home." Al was giving him a _what-about-the-case? _look, but Ed gave him an _it-doesn't-matter-right-now_ look in response.

"No! This plan sucks. I'd rather just go home now." She sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"Just... trust me, Win."

The nickname made Winry make a little startled noise, but she seemed to settle somewhat. "Okay."

"Good. Pack a bag and get on the next train to East City.

"Ed, I..." It sounded like Winry had been about to say something important, but she lost her resolve midsentence and trailed off.

"You what?" Ed pressed, wondering if there was something relevant that she wasn't telling him.

"I'm scared, but... I do trust you."

When Ed hung up, he turned to his younger brother. "Well, that was unexpected."

"I'm as surprised as you are, Brother. It's not like Grandma to not respond to us like this. Last time, it was the tipoff that something had gone wrong. She wouldn't leave us hanging unless she couldn't physically drag herself to the phone. But beyond that, Granny's not even alone. So where are Eli and Meta? Even if for argument's sake they WERE all sick, the fever doesn't have 100% mortality rate; that'd be ridiculous. My guess is that the letter never arrived."

"When was the last letter you got from Luna dated?" Ed asked suddenly.

Al looked a little thrown off, but he got up and searched through the papers they had on the shared writing desk and fished out the only paper that was luminescent orange. He checked the date on the letter. "June 24th."

"Almost a month ago." Ed grabbed the article by Jessica Crichton and checked the date. "July 14th, so twenty days after Luna stopped writing. The Aerugean fever takes five days to incubate and three to four days to kill. So if the fever came to Amestris in mid-June..." He grabbed a piece of scrap paper and sketched out a map of Amestris, with dots for Central, East City, South City, Resembool, Lior, the capital of Aerugo, and a few border towns. "Let's put my secondhand medical knowledge and investigative skills to the test. Day one: An infected passenger infects a train car full of people entering Amestris from Aerugo. The train stops in this border town." He circled it and wrote "Ground Zero." "Everyone in the car gets out and infects the people at the station. Day two: the train station full of infected people infects the town at large. Days three and four: business as usual. The number of infected people goes up exponentially. This whole area," he shaded in a zone of infection with the original town as the epicenter, "is now endangered. Day five: The first man, who was in the original infected train car, gets sick, but thinks nothing of it. Day six: the very first infected town sees a jump in the number of sick people, and they start to suspect, but the fever is low on the first day, so no word gets out that anything serious is going on. Days seven and eight: People all along the southern border I just shaded are now sick. The first people to be infected are dying. The smaller towns are now aware that there is a pandemic going down. They begin stopping trains, but it's too little too late." Ed drew a big circle around the parts of Amestris that were now infected in his scenario. Resembool was in the circle. "Day nine, day ten, day eleven, day twelve: No trains are getting out of the stations, so no news is going north. People in South City are now dying and nobody up north has any idea." He continued shading in the hypothetically infected areas. "Days 13 and 14: People in Resembool, which was infected on days eight and nine, are now getting sick. Since the trains stopped around the same time Resembool was infected, the fever is apparently out of the blue. News trickles into the big cities of fever in the South, but rumors abound and it's impossible to tell fact from fiction. The media reports unknown disaster in the southern third of Amestris. However, cities that get the news also get the sickness. By day fifteen, essentially half of Amestris is either sick or incubating the Fever. Days sixteen and seventeen, people in Resembool are dying, and no news has come to them since day nine. We can safely assume that day nine is around the 24th, because her letter must have gotten through before the trains stopped. Therefore, Day 19 is July 5th or so. In the following eight or nine days, telegraphs in the bigger cities, which send messages where the trains aren't going, has established that the fever is indeed at epidemic level. July 13, Jessica Crichton writes her editorial, July 14 it is published. Winry writes to Granny and us on the 14th. Obviously, the letter didn't make it to Resembool. And July 23rd is today." Ed counted the days and flipped the scrap paper over to calculate an approximate speed for the disease's spread. "Distance equals rate over time, so rate equals distance times time, and South City is like, what? One hundred miles into Amestris if you round it off? So that means... East City was infected two or three days ago."

Al listened in silence, watching Ed sketching out the scenario and labeling the waves of disease he'd shaded in before with dates. "Two days ago?" Al repeated. "The city's already got it?"

Ed seemed just as shocked and distressed as Al was. He put his head in his hands. "Why did I just tell her to come here?" _She said she trusted me._

"Should we call her back and tell her to say put?"

"And spare her one day of delaying the inevitable?" Ed responded. "What's the point?"

"So what _should_ we do?"

"I don't really know... I just know we _have_ to get home."


	11. Checkpoint

**Woohoo! I actually got it posted on the right day! This is awesome! *hops around happily* Sorry for going on vacation. If it makes y'all feel any better, it sucked. ^^ But according to my reviews the wait had you on pins and needles, which is exactly the response I was going for, so yay!**

**Please review; I don't own FMA; I love you guys!**

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"I'm going to tell her when she gets here."

"Tell what?"

"About that model you made of the epidemic."

"It'll just scare her even more. And it's not definitive anyhow. No, it's better to wait and tell her about the change of plans once she gets here, but we definitely shouldn't tell her we're probably already infected with the fever."

"Whenever she gets here," Al said, looking out at the railroad for signs of the train, which was delayed. "You have our tickets?" he verified, glancing back at Ed.

"They haven't gone anywhere in the last ten minutes, Al. Since when are _you_ the impatient one?"

"Sorry, I'm just nervous. I wish Winry's train would get here already."

"Is that it now?" Ed asked, pointing at the gradually enlarging black spot in the place where the railroad tracks met the horizon.

"Hope so," said Al, and they fell silent to watch the train roll in. As soon as the doors opened Winry was the first person off, and she looked around the station wildly for a moment before her eyes lit on Ed and Al, who had already taken up their bags and were heading over to her.

"Change of plans," Ed said when they were close enough to speak. "We're going straight home on the next train that's coming in."

Winry hugged Al for a minute, then hugged Ed for a much longer minute. He couldn't help wondering if he had the fever already, and if the simple touch had just passed it to her. "How come we no longer have to wait two days for news?" she asked.

"Al and I found out that no mail or phone calls are getting south," said Ed. He purposely left out the part about how they knew that. Winry never asked, as if she knew she didn't want to know.

When Ed was worried about something, he became fidgety and restless. Conversely, Al became very still. Winry did neither of these things in favor of staring out the window (or, if there was no window, some inconsequential inanimate object in the near distance) in silence. Every now and then she would wipe her eyes, when the tears in them became so that she could not see. For the first hour of their train ride home, you couldn't have found a more silent or serious or tense or solemn group of teenagers. This would have continued for the rest of the six-hour ride, was the train not interrupted only an hour out.

First, there was a long wait, and all the passengers mumbled among themselves and were very confused. Then all of a sudden, soldiers in their blue uniforms burst onto the train car. "Everyone remain calm," someone said. The soldiers fanned out, and one came to stand in the aisle right beside Al. There were fifteen altogether. Once the soldiers were in position, three nurses (in Amestrian uniforms with red crosses on their hats, breast pockets, and a very large one on their backs) filed in and went to the first three rows of passengers.

"What's going on?" Al wondered as they watched the nurses give the bewildered passengers brief examinations, checking the eyes and scalp before moving on. Whenever a nurse finished with a passenger, she would turn to the nearest soldier and nod or shake her head. The soldiers all had little red and green playing-card-shaped objects, which they were passing gout to the passengers: green if the nurse nodded; red if the nurse shook her head. Very few people got red cards.

"Why do you think they're looking at everyone's hair and eyes?" Winry asked.

"Hey," said Ed to the closest soldier. When he turned, Ed asked, "What are they doing?"

"Sorry, kid. Official military business. Can't tell the civilians." He turned away again.

"Clearly he doesn't know who he's talking to," Ed mumbled in an aside to Winry and Al, standing up and digging his watch out of his pocket. "Excuse me, Warrant Officer," (he had memorized the pattern of stripes on Amestrian soldiers' uniforms), "My name is Edward Elric, otherwise known as the Fullmetal Alchemist. I'm a Lieutenant Colonel, in case you were wondering if I outrank you. So, let's hear what's going on here." He smirked smugly.

Warrant Officer Jacob McKay saluted Ed upon seeing the Fuhrer's seal on his State Alchemist's watch. He seemed a little sheepish. "The train has stopped at a fever checkpoint. That's what the nurses are looking for."

"Let me guess," said Al. "The red cards are for the people who have got it." Only two people had gotten red cards so far.

_That's stupid,_ Winry thought. _If even one person's got it that means we've all been exposed._ But she didn't say anything out loud.

"That's right," said Warrant Officer McKay.

"Where do the red card people go?"

"All I know is that they're quarantined."

"Quarantined..." Ed repeated, frowning. "For how long?"

"I have no idea, sir."

"Where do they go?"

"Don't know, sir."

"Stop calling me sir."

"Yes, sir."

Ed opened his mouth as if to speak but no words came to him, so Winry spoke up. "You don't know where they go or what happens to them there. So what _do_ you know? Why are you soldiers even here?"

"If the passengers resist..." Officer McKay was still addressing Ed (because technically Ed was the only one he was allowed to tell private information to), "It's our job to make sure the nurses can do _their_ job."

"Have many passengers been putting up a fight, then?"

"Sometimes fever diagnosees insist they don't have it, and they can get violent when we pull them off the train."

"What do you do about families?"

"What?"

"What if the parents in a family have the fever but the children don't? Where do the kids go?"

"If a single person in a party has the fever, chances are that other people have the fever and aren't.... shoot, what's the word? Showing signs of it yet."

"You mean symptomatic," Winry supplied.

"That's the word. Yeah, if one person in a group has the fever, we red-card everyone."

"That doesn't seem fair," Winry said softly.

"It's almost our turn," Al observed.

The people in the seats behind them got red-carded, which had the effect of setting everyone (except Warrant Officer McKay, who had had the fever years ago and was therefore immune) on edge.

"Alright, who first?" said the nurse cheerfully. She had dark hair and an honest face. "How about you, dear? Ladies first?"

"Ladies first," Winry repeated shakily.

"Don't get upset, it's very quick," said the nurse as she grabbed a light from her pocket and shone it in Winry's eyes. "What color are her eyes, normally?" she asked Ed and Al.

"Blue," said Ed.

"What kind? Sky, turquoise, robin's egg...?"

"Darker."

"Was it a very bright blue, like lapis lazuli? Or duller, like deep water?"

Ed hesitated. He knew Winry's life depended on an exact answer. He waited so long that Al answered. "Ocean."

"Okay, then..." said the nurse softly, and she clicked the light off. "Pull your pony out, please?"

Winry complied, yanking on the ponytail holder so hard it snapped instead of coming out cleanly. "Dang," she muttered, stuffing the snapped band into her pocket to throw away later. The nurse started examining Winry's scalp carefully as if searching for ticks. After a moment she leaned away.

"No color change evident at the roots. Jacob, you can give her the green. All right, son, it's your turn." She pulled out her light again and looked at Ed. After a moment of blinding him with it, she pressed her lips together suspiciously. "His eyes aren't normally brown, are they?"

"No..." said Winry nervously. "Gold. He has gold eyes too," she added, pointing at Al.

"They're not brown, are they?" Ed asked.

"No, but brown will sometimes lighten to gold if someone has the white fever, so I had to check. If your eyes are really that color then it's probably not the white fever. Unbraid your hair, please."

"But I thought you just said I didn't have the fever?" Ed questioned.

"Just do it, Ed," said Winry, who couldn't bring herself to point out that she'd said "probably not the _white_ fever."

"Don't order me around," Ed groused as he obeyed her.

The nurse looked very carefully at Ed's hair as she had looked at Winry's, but it was over quickly. The nurse glanced significantly at Officer McKay when she was done, then went over to Al.

"Same eye color as him?" the nurse verified.

"That's right," said Al. "We got it from our father."

"Huh" was all she said.

"What's the verdict?" asked Warrant Officer McKay, almost jokingly. (He had done this routine too many times to take it seriously.)

"Are you traveling with these brothers?" the nurse asked Winry.

"Yes, I am..." she said uncertainly.

"Okay." The nurse turned to Officer McKay. "Red card them all, Jacob," she said briskly as she moved to the next group in the row.

Winry jumped up, staring after her in indignation. "_What?_"

"Sorry," said Officer McKay, taking her green card from her and replacing it with a red one.

"But—I don't understand! We aren't sick!" she spluttered, looking at Ed helplessly. "Tell him we can't possibly be sick. He'll believe you, you're the Fullmetal Alchemist and all that!"

Of course, knowing what they knew and hadn't told her, Ed and Al couldn't say anything.

"Get whatever you brought and had off the train," Warrant Officer McKay instructed. "There will be people out there to tell you where to go from there. Please don't, y'know, touch anyone or whatever."

Al and Winry just rolled their eyes at this instruction, but as Ed passed by Officer McKay he couldn't resist the temptation to wriggle his fingers in a ghostly, _I'm-gonna-get-you_ way. Officer McKay only shrank back for a second before he remembered he was immune anyway and smirked.

Ed could have sworn he mouthed the word "short" as they stepped out of the car.


	12. Confusion

**If you have some decent inferential skills this chapter should help you understand last chapter a little more. If you still don't get it I probably won't explain it to you, because that just means you can be as bewildered as the characters are. Although given the exact time schedule I've given this disease (5 days communicable without symptoms, 3-4 days burning the fever), it'll be pretty obvious who got sick first. But that comes later.**

* * *

The checkpoint where the train had been stopped was a hub of activity. People with red cards like Ed, Al, and Winry's were stepping uncertainly off the train from nearly every car, looking around in bewilderment at the many soldiers and nurses and people shouting directions at the red-carded people. Many of the soldiers were wearing white masks over their mouths and noses, but some weren't and it must have been the case that these people were already immune.

It must have been a worse experience for the people who had been red-carded, since at least Ed, Al, and Winry knew what was going on thanks to Ed's position in the military, but everyone else was entirely in the dark.

"A'ight, red cards?" asked some officer near them whose job was apparently directing traffic. Winry held up hers, and Ed and Al followed suit. "You a group?" Winry nodded mutely. "Okay, stick together—hold hands if you have to—and head to the lines." He pointed through the crowd at a mass of people that seemed to be organizing itself into lines, albeit slowly and assisted by too few staff for the job. At the head of the 'lines' were rows of white booths, like ticket booths but larger and not built into the building: they had been erected recently.

"Okay, don't get separated," said Winry, arbitrarily since Ed and Al already knew not to do so.

"This is so confusing and pointless," Ed complained as they found themselves at the back of one of the semi-lines for the booths.

"What do you suppose they're doing at the booths?" Winry wondered aloud, standing on her tiptoes to see over the sea of heads.

"My guess is they're doing more examinations," said Al. "The ones on the train can't have been very definitive, can they?"

"And there seem to be a lot of nurses around the heads of the lines," Ed added.

"Well, good, then they can see none of us are really sick," said Winry, sounding pleased. "I don't want to be quarantined. I have to get home."

Neither Ed nor Al had any response to that, so they waited in the lines in silence. When they reached the booths they found that Al's hypothesis had been right, and Winry got called into the booth first.

The examination took longer than the one on the train. First, the woman doing it asked all sorts of questions:

"What is your name?"

"Winry Rockbell."

"Where do you live?"

"I just moved to Lior."

"And before?"

"Resembool, it's a small town in the south."

"When did you move to Lior?"

"Several weeks ago."

"Why?"

"I'm a automail mechanic, and I got an offer for an abandoned shop there that I couldn't refuse."

"You were running the shop?"

"Yes."

"So you came in contact with customers on a regular basis."

"Yes."

"Hmm." The woman pressed her lips together and wrote something on her clipboard.

After that, there was a physical examination not very different from the one Winry had had on the train, except this time the nurse also took her temperature and pressed her fingers into the sides of Winry's neck, just under her chin, checking for swollen lymph nodes. After that, the nurse stuck Winry's finger with a needle and squeezed a drop of blood onto a little card, then set it on the little table, unscrewed a bottle of a clear liquid, and used a pipette to drip a single drop of the liquid onto the card. It turned dark magenta.

"Congratulations," said the nurse, pulling the sheet off of her clipboard, stamping it, and folding it into quarters. "Take this paper, keep it with you at all times. It's your ticket out of here. Now what you want to do is go out this door—not the one you came in—and show someone this paper and they'll tell you where to go next. Wait, you didn't come with a group, did you?"

"My boyfriend and his brother."

"Okay, that complicates things. All three of you will have to be cleared before you can go." She grabbed a box full of centimeter-thick white paper strips and pulled one out, then got a different stamp than the one she'd used before. This one had a five-digit number on it and was adjustable. The nurse turned the dial once to change the number one higher, then stamped one of the paper strips and wrote a number 3 on it in red ink (the stamp itself was plain black). She then grabbed Winry's wrist and wrapped the strip around it, yanking away the cover of the adhesive on one end and pressing the two ends together so it looked like a rather ugly bracelet. "The number on here is your group's ID, and it will keep you three together so don't lose it or obscure the number."

"Okay."

"Now go out by this door and wait for the other two in your group to come out."

"Okay."

Al was next in line and next to emerge from the room. He was holding a folded exam results paper just like Winry and he also had a white bracelet on his wrist. Winry started grilling him to find out what had happened.

"What did she ask you?"

"Where I lived, why I was here, if I had been in the south of Amestris in the past two months, where I was going on the train, plus all the regular questions like my name and age and stuff."

"Did she do an examination like the one on the train?"

"Yes, and I had to explain that my eyes are naturally this color."

"Did she prick your finger onto an indicator card and—"

"Dropped some clear liquid on it, yes. It turned indigo."

"Purple, you mean?"

"No, it was bluer. Indigo. Did _yours_ turn purple?"

"Yes, sort of a magenta color..." she said slowly, frowning. "By all rights our indicators ought to have turned the same color. What happened next?"

"She gave me my paper, put the band on my wrist, and sent me out."

"No, I mean, what did she say about the color of your blood on the card?"

"Nothing. She was very calm and dispassionate. I had no idea what she was thinking."

"She told me 'congratulations,'" said Winry. "Maybe the fact that she didn't say anything is a bad sign."

Al fell silent at this and they stared at the door, waiting for Ed to come out. As soon as he did, Winry launched into him with questions. Her first one was, "What color did it turn?"

"Uh... what?"

"On your indicator card," Winry clarified. "What color did your blood turn?"

"That was the little white card she had when she pricked me?"

"Yes," she said impatiently. "What color?"

"Dark blue."

"Was it indigo?" Al asked.

"Yeah, indigo is dark blue, isn't it? What does this have to do with anything? Shouldn't we be taking our papers to someone who will tell us where to go instead of discussing what color my blood turned?"

"This isn't a good sign," said Winry softly.

"Who do we talk to about where to go?" Al wondered.

"Hey!" Ed snagged the arm of the first soldier to pass by them. "Help us out. Which way do we go?"

"Let's see your papers," he responded, then he grabbed Ed's arm and read the numbers on the ID bracelet. "Three, so that's you and these two?" he verified, glancing at Winry and Al.

"Yes, that's right," said Winry.

"Okay, all three of you hand me your papers." Winry and Al forked theirs over; Ed had already done it. The soldier glanced at them all, then refolded the papers and handed them back. "Alright, take these, go down this hall, and follow the group heading left. Someone there will take you to an unoccupied bunker."

"Bunker?" Winry repeated, alarmed.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," said the soldier dismissively, hurrying away before they could question him further.

"Bunker..." Winry mumbled.

"What use would they have for us in a bunker?" Ed asked.

"Let's just do what he said and hope this won't take much longer," said Al, sounding disturbed by the news himself.

"I don't like this," said Ed as they followed the hall the soldier had directed them towards. No one said it but in their heads they were all connecting the dots: Bunkers, indicator cards that didn't match, red cards, _quarantine._ It was becoming clear that they weren't on their way home anytime soon.

"This line is taking forever."

"I know, I'm going crazy waiting." Winry passed her suitcase off to Ed and reached into her pocket for a new ponytail holder (she had snapped her other one by accident on the train.)

"It's moving pretty fast considering how many people are in it," Al said to mollify them.

"We shouldn't even be one of the people _in_ this line," Winry complained. "We're not sick."

"Enough harping on that," Ed snapped. He didn't want to think about it, but she kept bringing it up.

Winry passed him a hurt look as she was pulling her hair through the ponytail holder.

Al looked like he wanted to cry as well, but for a different reason. "Winry..."

"Don't say anything," said Ed sharply.

"Say anything about what?" Winry asked.

"Why?" Al asked. "I want to tell her. She needs to know. You can't just keep it a secret forever, Brother!"

"What do I need to know? What's a secret? What are you guys hiding from me?"

Ed averted his eyes. "It'll just upset her more."

"_What_ will?" Winry was getting annoyed now; her hand inched toward her pocket. (Wrench.)

"Brother..." Al pleaded.

"I'll explain later, Win." By his tone, the matter was over for now. Al understood Ed's decision, Winry refused to give up that easily.

"Ed, if you don't tell me what you're going on about I'm going to hit you so hard it'll make your ancestors dizzy—so spill!"

"Let it go," said Ed and Al simultaneously.

"Oh, Al, not you too! I _expect _it from Ed, at least!"

"This isn't the time or place, Winry. Please trust us."

That caught Winry up short. She looked at Ed, who had snapped his head over to her at the word 'trust.' _Did you tell him what I said?_ her eyes asked.

Ed shook his head once.

"What's with the...?" Al asked, waving his fingers at them both to indicate the inexplicable silent exchange.

"Nothing," said Ed, and Winry said: "Don't worry about it." Ed added, "It's not important," to which Winry tacked on: "It's just a personal thing."

"O... kay."


	13. Impersonal

The head of the line was someone at a booth, reading off bracelet numbers and pointing people down one of three hallways where they converged at the head of the line. The man seized Winry's arm to read the number on her bracelet. "Three in your group? Okay, follow those three down Hall F and there's a nurse at the end who will direct you to your room and explain what's going on. Next in line!"

"Well, that was very impersonal," Ed said as they followed the three people who had been ahead of them in the line (a man, his short and dark-haired wife, and a little girl of about seven).

"I wonder how he knows which hall to send the people to," said Al.

"Is that the nurse we're supposed to talk to, there?" Winry asked, pointing down the hall.

"Probably," Ed said simply.

When they got closer, the nurse, a young woman perhaps a decade older than themselves, introduced herself as Lisa C. Maguire and showed them into the room. Their room was number 089F.

"You're the last in my care sector," said Lisa, "so it'll be a while before I can make my way back to your room to give you the rundown of procedures. Make yourselves comfortable and I'll be back as soon as the other fourteen are through." When she left, she closed the door and there were the unmistakable sounds of a key being inserted into a lock.

"Did she seriously just lock us in here?" said Ed.

"Even if we didn't know six different ways out of here between us, it's the _principle_ of the thing," said Winry.

"Four bunks," Al noted.

"Only four?" Winry asked in surprise, looking around the room.

It was very small, only one room. There were four bunks, two on the wall on the left and two on the wall of the right. They were currently folded up on the wall so they didn't take up space, but if they were let down they would have been the dominant objects in the room. Further back there was an area sectioned off with a white curtain, behind which there was a toilet, a shower, a sink, and a mirror. On the back wall opposite the door there was what looked like a window with a metal shutter over it. It had a lock which opened on the other side, so that there was no way to lift the shutter from their side of the window. The room was lit by harsh fluorescents.

"This place sucks, Mommy," said the little girl whom Ed, Al, and Winry had followed in.

"I know, it's not any fun," said her mother, who looked up at her husband next. "When do you suppose that young nurse will be back here, Alec? I'd like to have a word with whoever's in charge and I expect we'll have to go through her."

"I have no idea, but it had better be soon."

"Four beds," Winry repeated under her breath, walking to the back of the room. "What's back here? Oh, it's the bathroom. No door, gross. And what's this odd window? It seems to open from the other side. God, this room is horrible. And how do they expect six people to share four bunks, anyway?"

"I'll share with Brother," said Al. "You can have the other 'cause you're a girl. Those two adults can share a bed as well, and the little girl can have the last one."

"My name's Gabrielle," she informed him. "What's _your_ name?"

"Alphonse," said Al. "This is my brother Edward, and that's our friend Winry."

"I'm Annissa Ouvert," said the girl's mother, letting go of Gabrielle's hand to shake Al's. "This is my husband Alec."

Al didn't say anything. "Nice to meet you" seemed like the wrong sentiment given the current situation.

He was saved an awkward moment by a loud abrupt crash from behind him.

"Whoops," said Ed. "Figured out how the beds unlatch from the wall, though."

"Idiot," said Winry, coming back to sit on the newly released bed. "So do we bust out of here or what? I have my tools, I could do it right now. Then again, since this place is crawling with people maybe walking out the front door isn't such a good idea."

"No, it's not," Ed confirmed. "Plus, there's these to consider." He held up his wrist with the bracelet. "We're numbered, so they'll be able to tell if we're missing."

"Do you kids know something we don't?" asked Mrs. Ouvert.

"We know why we're here," Ed offered. "It's not pretty, are you sure you want to know?"

"Yes, of course," said Mr. Ouvert.

"We're being quarantined."

"What for?"

"If you're here, it means you've been diagnosed with the Aerugean Fever."

"Oh, God," said Mrs. Ouvert, squeezing her husband's hand. "That's horrible."

"Hey, how come you know this?" asked Alec suspiciously.

Ed pulled out his State Alchemist's watch. "I'm a dog of the military too."

"Not even their own personnel are exempt from being shut up in these... _barracks_? That's harsh," he said.

Winry and Al noticed the door opening and glanced over at the same time.

"We're shut up in here?" Gabrielle asked. "Why, Dad? For how long?"

"Seems like we're already semi-informed in here," commented Nurse Maguire as she let herself in. "How did that come about?"

Ed already had his watch out. He brandished it at her. "I'm able to get some information using this. However, I haven't had the most reliable sources thus far. What's the answer to little Gabby's question, Nurse?" He spat the last word with as much venom as he could manage.

"Just nine days," said Nurse Maguire.

"Nine days...?" Mrs. Ouvert repeated. "Why?"

"The Fever takes eight days to run its course," said Ed flatly. "The extra day... Anyone who doesn't have it when they go into the barracks will catch it from their cellmates on that first day, is that right, _Nurse?_" He kept hissing the title at her in such a way that she looked almost afraid even though he was half her size and ten years her junior.

"Yes, that's right," she said softly.

"Great, trapped like rats for more than a week," Ed snapped, going to sit on the bunk next to Winry, who subtly took his hand. "This sucks."

"Well, I'm sorry but it's for your own good. If you're okay after nine days you can go home and on the plus side, you'll be immune to the Fever," said Nurse Maguire.

"And if we're not okay after nine days?" asked Mr. Ouvert.

"The Fever can be fatal," Nurse Maguire admitted.

"Fatal..." Mrs. Ouvert echoed into her husband's ear.

"It's gonna be fine, Annie," he murmured back, kissing her cheek comfortingly.

"Anyway," said Nurse Maguire, "let me tell you what you need to know. As you already know, you're here for eight days. Food comes through this door twice a day at nine and four." She pointed at the metal-shuttered window Winry had been looking at earlier. "You'll notice there's no switch for the fluorescents, that's because they turn off at nine and turn on again at seven every morning on schedule from a master switch. There are the facilities." She pointed at the curtain where the shower and toilet were. "I will come visit you every day. You're the last in my sector, as I mentioned before, so your visit will be latest. About seven, I expect. There are no drugs to cure the Fever, obviously, but we have acetaminophen and aspirin for those who ask. We also have sedatives, so don't try anything funny. And... well, I guess that's all. See you tomorrow!" She left quickly without a real goodbye.

"So that's it?" Winry asked in the ensuing silence. "'Here's a place for you to sleep while you're dying of the Fever, so good luck and see you in nine days!' How awful."

"It's so impersonal," Ed reused his word from earlier.

"Basically we're doomed to have this sickness," said Mr. Ouvert. "Even if we don't have it, we have to stay here until we get it? That _is_ really impersonal."

"Mommy?"

"Gabby," said Mrs. Ouvert, pulling her daughter close. "Mommy and Daddy love you so much, you know that?"

"Why are we here? Are we sick?"

"No, not yet," said Mrs. Ouvert. "We're gonna be stuck here for awhile, though. You can have the top bunk, how's that?" She let go of Gabrielle and turned to unlatch the two bunks behind her.

Meanwhile, Winry was staring at her lap and it looked like she was trying very hard and not entirely succeeding in not crying. Ed squeezed her hand and Al sat on her other side and rubbed her shoulder to comfort her, but neither could find the right words. There just weren't any.


	14. Revelation

Stillness is a surprisingly easy feat when one is scared out of one's mind. Mr. and Mrs. Ouvert, Gabrielle, Winry, and Alphonse were good examples of this sort of helpless, waiting stillness. The couple and child sat on the bottom bunk of the beds on the left side of the room. Mr. and Mrs. Ouvert were whispering to each other. Occasionally Gabrielle would interrupt with a question or the increasingly persistent and frequent complaints of "I'm bo-o-ored!" "I'm hungry-y-y!" and "When are we going ho-o-ome?" The rest of the time she was silent.

Meanwhile, Winry was having an internal battle between the part of her that really wanted to break down in tears and the part of her that really, _really_ didn't want to. Attempting to comfort her was Alphonse, who was coping with the guilt that he and Ed shared for being the ones who caused Winry to be stuck in quarantine with them.

On the other hand, Al's older brother was refusing to cope with this guilt. When had Edward Elric ever dealt with problems the easy way, anyhow? Instead, Ed paced back and forth across the room and periodically said things like "This is bullshit," and "We shouldn't even be here," and "Who the hell designed this godforsaken quarantine facility anyway? It's giving me claustrophobia," and "Damn it!" (This last was accompanied by a solid blow to the nearest wall, piece of furniture, or other inanimate object, and the obligatory "Don't you dare scratch up my automail!" from Winry.)

Ed's frustrations were exacerbated by the opening of the metal shutter on the wall, through which 'dinner' came on ugly metal trays, passed through the portal by an uglier woman who wore a mask over her nose and mouth and seemed unwilling to touch Mr. Ouvert, the one who took the trays from her and passed them around. The closing of the metal shutter gave a too-loud sound like prison bars clanging, and, combined with the unhealthy fluorescent light on everyone's faces, the sense of being trapped seemed to increase and compound.

No one slept that first night.

Gabrielle, being only seven years of age, might have been the exception to this in another circumstance, however it turned out that Gabrielle "didn't feel good" and she came off of her top bunk to sleep next to her parents. But Ed, Al, and Winry didn't know that until morning (or rather, when all the fluorescents spontaneously flickered on). Gabrielle slept despite the lights being on and when her mom tried to rouse her, she just rolled over an mumbled a little. And as if that wasn't proof enough, the brights lights made it obvious (when you knew what you were looking for) that the color of her hair near her scalp was almost black, whereas the rest of her head was chestnut. Thirdly (and this was most subtle), Gabrielle's skin wasn't pale as a sick child's would be, but rather she appeared tanned and almost healthy.

"I knew it," Mrs. Ouvert hissed at her husband, keeping her voice low so as not to alarm any of the children or teenagers present. "We should have done something earlier—then this wouldn't have happened."

"She's resilient," Mr. Ouvert argued back as he tucked Gabrielle back under the thin, slate gray, hospitallike blanket. "She'll be fine and so will we."

"What's the rate of survival for this fever?" asked Mrs. Ouvert as she opened up the suitcase she'd brought along.

"I've heard eighty-five, ninety..." he responded softly. When Mrs. Ouvert got out some clothes and started changing, Mr. Ouvert glared at Ed and Al until they realized what he wanted and turned away pointedly (they hadn't been looking in the first place).

"Eighty percent, Alec, don't sugarcoat it for my sake," Mrs. Ouvert snapped. "What happens to Gabby if we don't make it, huh?"

"Mom will take care of her."

"Yours or mine?"

"Either."

"And what if they get the fever too? Our mothers aren't young any more, and neither is my father."

"Richard can take her."

"Your brother is a serial goldfish murderer, you think he can raise a _child_?"

"He'll rise to the occasion. This is all a hypothetical anyway. You think you, me, both our moms, _and_ your dad are going to die? That's way less than 80% survival."

"You're just bringing that up because you've lost the argument and you know it."

Ed nudged Al and leaned in. "I hope my wife is never that shrill with me."

Al glanced at the upper bunk in response.

"Oh, don't even go there," Ed said before Al could start. "It's not like that anyway."

Al raised his eyebrows and didn't say anything.

"Well, look who's talking," said Ed, reaching for Luna's necklace and yanking on it to make it clear what he was talking about.

"Why are you getting so defensive?" asked Winry from the upper bunk. She had been listening the whole time. "It's kind of pathetic, Ed. You suck at keeping secrets."

"Is it a secret?" Al asked in joking surprise.

"Is it?" Winry asked seriously as she hopped down from her bunk.

Ed held up his hands. "Why are you both looking at me as if I know the answer?"

"Sounds like something you should have discussed with her," said Mr. Ouvert helpfully, in response to which Ed groaned loudly.

"He hates being told what to do by his elders," Al explained to Mr. Ouvert's confused and slightly offended expression.

Winry had gathered her clothes from her traveling bag and was preparing to step behind the curtain to shower, but she seemed to change her mind before she got that far. "No," she said suddenly. "I don't feel like having a discussion about it." She yanked Ed closer by his wrist (not hard to do given the small size of the room) and mashed her lips to his before he had a chance to react.

"There," she announced. "Problem solved. Does that answer your questions, Al?" She disappeared behind the curtain without waiting for a response.

"Okay then," said Al as Ed stared at the now-closed curtain in a kind of daze as if unsure whether to be angry that she'd let the cat out of the bag or, as he was more inclined to do, imagine what she was doing behind the curtain as the water faucet screeched on and her clothes floomphed to the floor.

"That settles that," Al continued. "Brother, stop staring at nothing... and close your mouth."


	15. Days 2 through 5

"Oh, sick already?" asked Nurse Maguire in surprise as she entered the room and saw that Gabrielle was very obviously ill. It was clear that the woman had expected the seven o'clock visit to be an arbitrary one, as was the case in almost every one of the other fourteen rooms in her care sector.

"She's been listless like this all day," said Mrs. Ouvert.

"There's not much I can do," said Nurse Maguire while she was trying to coax Gabrielle into sitting up so she could take her temperature. "Only a hundred degrees right now," she said presently. "Low today, but it will probably get higher during the night; that's how this usually works. If she will drink give her water, but don't take it from the sink in there—just bang on the food door loudly until someone comes—we boil our water in the kitchens so she won't be able to get any complicating illnesses while she's already sick." Next, Nurse Maguire turned Gabrielle around to examine her back, where the rash (and in more severe cases, boils) would most often appear. Gabrielle's was minimal and looked like a mild case of acne more than anything else. "If it starts to itch or burn, flick the call switch over there. It lights up in my room if you do. She's young, as are those three so I could probably get an exception to your aloe ration, and if not I can get surplus calamine or aloe from the sectors that were cleared yesterday, before the supplies get thrown away." She looked at the two adults, then the three teenagers on the other side of the room. "Anyone else feeling poorly?" She took the silence as a no and left the room.

After the lights went out for the night, Ed and Al took advantage of everyone else's distraction with Gabrielle (and in Winry's case, sleeping) to have a conversation in whispers. It began when Al asked when Ed was going to tell Winry about the model of the fever that Ed had made. "She will never forgive us if she finds out we know that the Fever hit Resembool so long ago and we didn't tell her right away."

"I want to... I just can't imagine telling her this, you know? Granny Pinako's not a young woman after all, and I can't tell her the Fever's already come and gone at home and make her spend the rest of her time in this dungeon wondering if she's already lost the only family she's got left. It's just cruel to tell her now."

"Brother, we're her family too," Al reminded him. "And don't you think she's already got that thought in her head? The truly cruel thing is leaving her in the dark."

"It's not the same thing," Ed argued. "I'd rather wait until we're out of here, at least. When we're free and there's something to be _done_ about it, then I'll tell her."

"By then it'll be too late."

Ed sighed loudly. "Damned if you do," he quoted.

"Would you _please_ tell her? You've brought me into the problem now and it's making me nervous, keeping secrets."

"I will, just not right now. I can't..." There was a note of despair in his voice. He really did _want_ to tell her, but it seemed impossible to do.

"Why don't you just listen to me, Brother? Just tell her and let what happens happen. Remember when we had that totally pointless misunderstanding because you wanted to know if I hated you because I was in the armor? It's the same thing you're doing now, Brother. You're going to make a bigger problem out of this than it has to be."

"Later, Al. I'm not going to tell her right now and that's the end of it. Stop harping on this and let me sleep."

"No—no, I won't stop. I really think you should tell her right now... If you don't, I will."

"Don't."

"I'm going to." Al sat up as if he was going to do it right then.

"Dammit, Al!" Ed sat up as well and thumped his thigh to make the point about how annoyed he was getting. "Stop this crap right now! She doesn't need to know that the Fever has already gone through Resembool and you're _certainly_ not going to be the one to tell her!"

In the darkness it was hard to discern Al's expression, Ed could only just make out the shape of his brother standing on the cold concrete floor beside the bed.

"Al?" Ed asked after a long moment of silence. _Maybe I went too far._ "Alphonse...?"

"Never mind," he said flatly. "I won't tell her after all."

"...What changed your mind?"

"I don't know..." he admitted. "I don't know. You were right, I guess, about sparing her feelings..." He looked a little owlish and dazed.

"Al, what are you going on about?" Ed was thoroughly confused now. For a moment he'd thought a responsibility and source of guilt had been taken away from him, and now he just had no idea.

"I don't know. I don't know." He paused for a second and said what he was really thinking: "She's sleeping. I couldn't."

* * *

By the third day of quarantine Mrs. Ouvert was running a fever as well as her daughter, and Gabrielle was pushing a solid 102, while Mr. Ouvert was panicking over them, over his own darkening eyes and hair, and over attempting to care for them both. (Mrs. Ouvert was easy because she slept all day and complained little, but Gabrielle was very uncomfortable and made sure that everyone knew.)

Ed and Al couldn't deny the lightening at their scalps and the dull straw color of their once-vibrant golden eyes. Winry was convinced her blue eyes had lightened but it was very subtle such that only she could tell. More noticeable than her eyes was her skin, which had paled so that she looked sickly though she felt fine.

The day passed as slowly as yesterday, and while Gabrielle and Mrs. Ouvert slept or rested and Mr. Ouvert cared for them, Ed paced as she had the day prior, occasionally joined by Winry, who was quickly losing patience for the quarantine, if she'd really had any to begin with.

Al hadn't entirely recovered from last night's realization that he was no better than Ed with telling the whole truth—at least when it came to the option of telling Winry the truth or sparing her feelings. For the better part of the morning Al was silent and thoughtful, and everyone else thought he looked a little sad—but that was written off in light of their location.

At midday (it was hard to tell exactly, but it was after the first meal of the day and before the second) Winry stopped pacing the room suddenly and went to her traveling bag, producing a notebook of some kind and a pencil that had been sharpened too many times. She began either sketching or writing something, but she wouldn't let anyone see. (To be fair, the Ouverts and Alphonse didn't much care to know what was in the book, while Ed only didn't want to know after he found out the hard way that she would whack anyone with a wrench who tried to peer over her shoulder.) She seemed very animated about what she was drawing, which made it even more annoying to watch her work.

* * *

By day four, all of the Ouverts were sick and Gabrielle was peaking at 104.6, to her parents' deep panic. Mr. Ouvert was still comparatively low at 101, but he continued trying to care for his wife and daughter until Winry's doctor instincts kicked in and she insisted that he lie down.

It was clear now that Ed, Al, and Winry all had the White Fever, as indicated by the fading of their eyes (Winry's were getting so light they looked gray, and Ed and Al's had gone from gold to faded straw to a shade of off-white that, if viewed from afar, made them look as if their eyes were sans irises.)

Nurse Maguire visited twice that day, a break from the norm, but all she did was take the temperature of the three sick people and then leave again. She looked harried and fatigued, and individually Winry, Ed, and Al came to the conclusion that fifteen rooms of six people each was too many for one person to deal with.

The first meal of the day (which couldn't be correctly called breakfast or lunch) was another break from the norm, making it the second unusual happening of the day. The strange thing about it was that two of the six trays passed through the food window seemed to have very little food on them.

"Hey," Winry questioned, "what about these two trays here?"

"What about them?" asked the lunch lady, who seemed to get uglier every day.

"There's not as much food on them. That's not right."

The woman consulted a piece of paper that was taped to the wall on her side of the food window. "Nope, it's all there."

"But—" Winry protested.

"Fevers over 104 get half rations," the woman cut her off. (Later, Nurse Maguire would explain why: "It's to conserve food so we're not wasting resources on the dying."

"But fevers don't get to the fatal level until 107," Winry pointed out.

"Children shouldn't try to understand the matters of adults," she snapped back.)

"Says here you've got two with fevers over 104, so that's all in order." The woman slammed the shutter in Winry's face.

Turning around, Winry gave a despairing look to Ed and Al, who had similar expressions of indignation and shock. None spoke, and after a second Winry dropped her gaze to the ground in sadness before taking the trays she was balancing over to their proper recipients.

"It's inhuman," said Ed, then he took both his tray and Gabrielle's from Winry's arms and put some of his food on hers, while Al and Winry did the same for Mrs. Ouvert. When it was explained to Mr. Ouvert (who had been dozing during the conversation) he gave Gabrielle some of his food too.

* * *

Gabrielle's fever broke sometime during the night, while Al's began that same night. Again Nurse Maguire came in the morning to check everyone's temperatures, informing them that Al was at 100.5, that Ed was an almost normal 99.4 (Ed began feeling fever chills by midmorning), that Gabrielle had dropped almost miraculously to 100, and her color was much better. Mrs. Ouvert had hit 105 overnight and Mr. Ouvert as at 103. Neither of them seemed to be _suffering_ from the rash much, though Mrs. Ouvert's _looked_ pretty nasty.

"Flick my call switch if she wakes up," said Nurse Maguire, pointing to Gabrielle, then she hurried out.

"_If _she wakes up?" Al repeated, confused. "I thought she just said Gabby was getting better?"

"Think about it, Al," said Winry. "Just because her fever broke doesn't mean the trouble is over. There's the question of whether..." She hesitated, but glanced at Ed, as if gleaning strength from the sight of him, and continued. "The question of whether she's still all there." She paused and looked at the ceiling, recalling the information in the newspapers: she'd grabbed every article she could find and read most of them on the train to East City. _Oh, wait. I still have those. _Winry went to her bag and dug around until she found the rolled-up newspapers at the bottom and pulled them out, unfurling them and flipping through until she found the article she was looking for: "What To Do If You Or Someone Close To You Has The Aerugean Black/White Fever" by Aida Daly. Winry traced her finger down the pace, scanning until she found the line she was looking for. She read it aloud: "'The Aerugean Black/White Fever can cause mental problems, especially with vision and speech, and sometimes can result in coma, so if someone you know has it it is imperative that you get them to a doctor.' It's really serious. And, I mean, her fever got really high last night before it broke, so anything is possible."

"Something might still be wrong with her?" Al said faintly, looking at the sleeping child. "Poor thing."

"There might not necessarily be anything wrong," Ed pointed out. "I ran a pretty high fever back when I had the automail surgery, right, Win? But there was never anything wrong with my head."

"Not anything wrong with your head that wasn't wrong before the operation," Winry corrected teasingly.

"Shut up," Ed shot back, smirking despite himself.


	16. Tug Of War

**I just had a very scary experience. Google "William Skiratko" and read some of the news articles about him. That girl who got the note: Her name is Ashley, she's a freshman in my Creative Writing class, she's one of my best friends, and Will is her ex. I was there when she got that note. I read it over her shoulder. I literally _touched_ a killer's _confession._ Now, Luna Helena Sisley Turner would have thought that was cool. Me, I'm shaken to say the least. Just imagine looking over one of your best friends' shoulder at a seemingly innocuous note and seeing the words: "When you're reading this, I have killed my mother. [...] I was very calm about it." Now imagine listening to the news and hearing the breaking story that matches that story exactly. Needless to say, I need some serious FMA therapy to take my mind off of it. Hence the big chunk'a chapter today.**

* * *

When Gabrielle woke up, she opened her eyes and then promptly started freaking out, crying like an infant, and was unable to explain what was wrong. Winry got up, went over, helped her to sit up, and talked to her soothingly until something understandable could be coaxed from the child, which was to the effect of "I can't see!"

Winry snapped her fingers a couple times at Ed and Al, then pointed at the call switch. Ed got up to flick it on. "What do you mean you can't see?" Winry pressed.

"I c-can't!" she blubbered, tears gathering and spilling over. "I've gone blind!"

"Calm down, okay?" said Winry. "What do you see? Blackness?" She needed to know exactly what had happened so she could help explain to Nurse Maguire.

"No... Yes. I don't know."

"What do you see?"

"Darkness, lightness. Funny shapes. No colors."

"Shapes?" Winry repeated. "Well, can you see me?"

"I know where you are by your voice and it's dark there... so there's a shape that might be you. I can't tell."

Winry waved her hand around in front of Gabby's face. "Can you see my hand?"

"Is it moving in front of me?" Gabby asked, squinting.

"Can you see it?" Winry repeated.

"I think so..." she said after a moment.

"Grab my hand," Winry instructed, becoming still.

Gabby reached out but misjudged the distance and caught air. "I can't."

"Try again."

She reached out again, farther than before, and her fingers brushed against Winry's arm just enough so that she knew where it was, and she wrapped her fingers around Winry's wrist. "Found it." She smiled a little.

"It looks like you can see a little," said Winry. "That's good."

"Why does it take so damn long for the nurse to get her ass in here?" Ed burst out suddenly, glaring at the door.

"Watch your language, Brother."

"This is how come Meta's nine years old with a mouth like a sailor," Winry added.

"That wasn't me," Ed protested.

"It was at least partially you," Winry argued. "She didn't cuss that way when we first took her in."

"Yes she did. You just weren't paying attention."

Winry waved a hand. "It's not relevant."

"You brought it up, not me."

Nurse Maguire walked into the room then (no knock, she never knocked) and zeroed in on Gabrielle, sitting up in bed and crying silently (it was very terrifying to be so young and have no idea why she had inexplicably lost her sight) and standing beside her, leaning on the side of the bunk, was Winry, who really would have liked to go to sleep, having stayed up with the sick people all night.

"She's lost her vision," Winry said bluntly.

"What, completely?" Nurse Maguire came over and shone a little light into Gabrielle's eyes. "You see it?" Nurse Maguire asked her.

The seven-year-old blinked and looked surprised. "It hurts," she said.

"So you _do_ see it."

Gabrielle had to pause and think about how to explain what she was seeing. "It's like if you look through the bottom of a glass bottle, but without the colors though."

"So you're seeing silhouettes of things? Light and dark?"

"Silla-whats? I guess so..."

"Are they distorted or can you see them like shadows?"

"Disdorded?"

"Funny-looking," Winry explained. "Like looking through the fun mirrors at a carnival. Or, like you said, through the bottom of a glass jar."

"Yes, disdorded," Gabrielle agreed.

"There's not much I can do," said Nurse Maguire. "You can wait to see if some of the damage resolves itself, but if your vision has been permanently damaged then your only choice is to have your parents take you to a good optometrist." She checked everyone's temperatures: Al was up to 100.9 and Ed had cracked 100, while Mr. and Mrs. Ouvert were holding steady, and Nurse Maguire predicted that Mrs. Ouvert's fever would break by early evening. She left as abruptly as she came.

* * *

When Mr. and Mrs. Ouvert were wakened that evening by Winry, who was trying to make sure they ate their half-rationed food, Ed tried to tell them about Gabby's eyes, but got a wrench embedded into his skull for the attempt. When no one was paying attention, the two brothers had a brief disagreement under their breaths wherein Al pointed out that Ed was quick to give others bad news, but when it came to Winry he still refused to breathe a word for fear of hurting her.

"You had your chance to say something," Ed reminded him, shutting down the discussion.

"Eat something," Winry ordered them both, glancing sideways as she was assisting the adults.

"I'm not that hungry," Ed told her.

"Which is exactly why you _should_ eat. Your body needs the energy."

Edward groaned loudly and childishly, but didn't pick up his fork as Al had done.

"Just _eat,_ Ed, or I'll hit you again."

He started eating slowly with a martyred expression, causing Al to laugh suddenly, just once. "Luna was right, Brother. You only respond to violence."

Winry laughed too. "Did she really say that? She's right."

Ed wasn't enjoying them laughing at his expense. "It's not that funny."

* * *

By day six Mrs. Ouvert was getting over the Fever and now it was Ed and Al's turn to be miserable. Winry sacrificed her bed so they didn't have to share, even though she herself was fighting her fever. Continuing to assist the sick people in the bunker, Winry was the picture of obstinacy, to make Ed proud—if he wasn't pushing a painful 102.3 as it were.

The result of Winry's insistence upon not resting was that she had difficulty keeping alert. As she was trying to care for Ed she made the mistake of leaning against the bed for a minute and found herself dozing off sitting up.

Unable to fully retain consciousness himself, Ed didn't wake her for twenty minutes, and the resulting conversation-slash-argument sounded like an exchange between two stoners for the bleariness of their tones.

"Hey, Winry. Hey, Winry, you're asleep."

"Wha...?" She opened her eyes and looked at him as if surprised he was next to her.

"Why don't you lie down proper?"

"Nnn..." She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her right hand one at a time.

"Don't be a..." He forgot what he was going to say and paused so long that the beginning of the sentence was nearly forgotten by the time he got to the end. "...Martyr."

"No... no. I'm taking care of you 'n' Al, I can't sleep now." She got up and rubbed her neck where her head had been angled the wrong way.

"Lie down," he said more forcefully. It occurred to him at that moment, perhaps years too late, that caring took a lot more effort than walking out: yet another proof that his father's passing was for the best, but at the same time proving that he had underestimated the courage it had taken to wait at home all these years while he and Al were searching for the Stone. _But enough dwelling on that—this fever is making me turn sentimental. Okay, maybe fevers can't do that but..._

"You can't tell me what to do," Winry argued as she was standing up, and activity that in her condition required two hands: one braced on the bed, and one clutching her spinning head.

"You're sick, you need to lie down." How many times, since they were small right up to the present, had they had this conversation in reverse?

"No."

"Yes." He grabbed her arm and pulled. His muscles felt like they were made of gelatin and his joints felt like they had been painlessly popped out of their sockets, but he didn't have to be strong, only stronger than her. The tug-of-war lasted even less time than usual and ended with Winry falling, as it always did, as it always had.

* * *

Even as children:

"_Come on, Ed, don't you wanna dance?" his mother asked him. Yes, he wanted to play with the family, but he certainly didn't want to embarrass himself, either._

"_Don't be a party pooper, Ed," Winry's mom laughed._

"_I'll_ make_ him dance, Daddy," said Winry, and she squirmed out of her father's arms and ran to Ed with a determined expression on her face. Seizing his wrist, she tried to pull him into the center of the room, but he planted his feet and they had a little tug-of-war which resulted in Ed losing his balance and falling on top of her. Both children toppled to the floor, and Winry screwed up her face like she was going to cry, while Ed rolled off of her and gave her an I-told-you-so look. All the adults laughed._

_Winry got up and ran to Sara Rockbell for comfort, but the sniffles only lasted a minute—she wasn't injured, except for maybe her pride._

* * *

And a little more recently, though this particular one might not have happened if it weren't for his own idiocy:

"_You don't have to lie to make me feel better, Ed. I can tell you have no idea what I'm talking about. Please, just forget about it, okay?" She stood up to leave._

"_Winry, wait." Ed sat up painfully and grabbed her wrist, stopping her as she turned to leave._

"_Ed, don't do this!" She just wanted to get away before she really started crying!_

_Ed refused to let go of her hand, though, and he matched the force of her pulling away with the force to pull her back. There was a short tug-of-war between them, until Winry lost her balance and stumbled onto the bed, landing on top of Ed._

"_Oof."_

"_Ow."_

"_Oh, sorry! I forgot you're still hurt." Winry tried to get up, but Ed stopped her by draping his arm around her waist._

"_You're not hurting me that much. Lie here a minute with me, Winry." He closed his eyes, smiling serenely._

"_Ed, you're being weird."_

"_I know. Shh."_

"_Why?"_

"_I'm enjoying the moment."_

* * *

And yet another example of Ed's ineptness at pretty much everything interpersonal barring fistfights (which he was shockingly excellent at):

"_So, Win, what's still bugging you?"_

"_You're not in bed yet. You told me you were going to go to bed ages ago, and yet here you are, in completely the wrong room for it."_

"_Your bed is nicer than the patient bed, anyway. I should commandeer this one."_

"_How are you going to manage that? I'm still _in _it."_

"_That's easy enough to solve." Ed grabbed her elbow and pulled, forcing her to sit up and participate in a little tug-of-war. Winry lost and she lurched forward off of the bed, catching herself with precarious balance before she could hit the floor. Ed continued pulling on her arm and he caught her when she stumbled into him._

"_I win."_

"_Yeah, big deal. I _never_ win."_

"_You used to win when we were little."_

_Winry snorted. "When we were _five_, maybe."_

"_Well, will it help if I apologize for being better at this game?"_

"_Not really. I'll still be mad at you. You could try anyway, though."_

"_No thanks. I have to claim my prize anyway." Ed released Winry and stepped around her to go sit triumphantly on her bed, smirking._

"_You thief," she accused._

"_And proud of it," he grinned._

"_What are the odds I can win if I pull your arm long enough to tire you out?" Winry seized his wrist to continue the tug-of-war, but Ed braced himself well and it didn't seem as if he was really exerting any effort at all. When he felt her start to lose energy, Ed capitalized on her weakness and gave her wrist a good hard tug, causing her to topple over._

"_No!" she lamented when she realized she'd lost. "It's not fair!"_

"_It is fair. I'm stronger, therefore I win every game of strength. All right, get off of me." This was getting uncomfortable, and not just because of the part of him that was wrapped in bandages—no, _this _annoyance was coming from somewhere a little more southern._

"_What for? I'm going to lose every time. I might as well stay in the loser's spot." Ed's lap._

"_The loser's spot is no longer open to you. You'll have to lose again to re-earn it."_

"_Why would anyone want to earn something by losing? That's so… counterproductive."_

"_Well, when you win you won't have to earn the loser's spot anymore," Ed said as he tried to squirm away._

"_Where are you going?"_

Away, before you notice anything _unusual _about me._ "Were you not just trying to get me _out_ of the bed?"_

"_Yes, but haven't you just expended all this effort to keep your little 'throne'? And now you're just going to run off—_what?_"_

"_I'm abdicating, that's what."_

"_You're weird, _that's_ what."_

* * *

However, for once in her life, after losing the tug-of-war for dominance, Winry was too ill and fatigued to pitch a fit about losing the game. She simply closed her eyes and passed out.


	17. Hopelessness

The first sensation Winry felt upon waking was discomfort. She was uncomfortable in six different ways, not the least of which was the sweat slicking her body and matting her hair. For better or worse, she wasn't wearing a shirt—she was lying on her stomach, though, so it wasn't _exactly_ inappropriate.

The most immediately noticeable feeling, eclipsing that of being unclean, was the acute pain burning across her body, not unlike the sensation of having one's skin scraped off layer by layer with a red-hot cheese grater.

But that wasn't what had woken her.

Gloved fingers were cold against the the burning skin across her shoulderblades, now trailing down her spine, pressing at points, leaving the painful parts untouched. Opening her eyes was too much effort, but listening was involuntary.

"Yes, out of all of you she seems to have the worst rash, but believe me, it gets a lot worse than this. You were all very lucky in here, actually. I've had to deal with three deaths already today, but you six are blessed with what looks more like the common cold than the Aerugean Fever." This voice was somewhere above her, and was attached to the fingers that were touching her.

"Can't you give us _something_ for her?" a male voice pleaded. This was Al, and he was slightly hoarse.

"There's not much I can—"

"Don't let me hear that line one more fucking time!" another male voice bellowed, no guesses who. Ed didn't sound right either; his voice was too thick; but not filled with sleep and sickness like the irrecognizable mumblings that she heard coming from her own vocal chords, sounding so little like herself that she had trouble believing that her own voice was hers.

"Maybe _you_ can't tell because you're so damn preoccupied with the other 89 patients you have to deal with," Ed continued ranting, "but let me clue you in to what anyone with half a brain could figure out: She. Is. In. Pain. It's all she can talk about whenever we wake her! Just _look_ at her, for fuck's sake! Now maybe I haven't explained this to you clearly enough, but my brother and I are both capable of getting out of here whenever we want by simply clapping our hands. We're only here out of courtesy. However, I won't hesitate to walk out the front door if you don't help her."

There was a pause. (Winry pictured Ed glaring.) Then Nurse Maguire let out a sigh. "Look... I'll try."

"You won't just _try_, you'll _do_ it," he growled.

Footsteps, the sound of the door opening, the lock clicking.

Fingers on her face, brushing back her hair, so gentle. Her eyelids fluttered a little but closed again, leaden, before her eyes could focus.

Breath across her face. "Are you awake?"

"Hnn," she managed to vocalize. "Ow..."

"I know," he responded with more pain in his voice than she'd heard in a very long time. "I know. I know. Just hold on. I'm trying. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." His voice was cracking.

She feebly attempted to open her eyes and look at him. "Don't cry."

"I'm not," he responded, able to neither laugh nor get defensive.

"O... okay." She closed her eyes again and sighed with the effort of even that tiny movement.

"I'm going to make sure you get something to make it better, okay? ...Win, can you hear me?"

"Mm," she responded. She wanted to stay awake so badly, but it was hard. "It hurts."

"I'll make it stop hurting, I promise." He leaned down and kissed her face. "Go to sleep. I'll take care of everything."

"Wait," she said as he moved away. "Stay... here... stay with me. Don't leave me."

He sat back down on the edge of the bed beside her. "Okay. I won't leave."

"Promise?"

An ironic chuckle. "Promises; that's all I can give you, isn't it?"

"Just... say yes... and mean it."

"Yes. And I mean it. Now sleep, Win. When you wake up I'll have made this all work out. I promise."

* * *

Ed sighed and banged his head against the wall behind him where the foldaway beds were bolted. With Winry's head in his lap while she slept, he couldn't do much else to show his frustration, and man, was he _frustrated! _She was sick, so sick that there was an actual possibility she might die, and he couldn't do a damn thing about it except stroke her hair and whisper beautiful lies ("You're just fine, don't be scared") in her ear until soon enough she would pass out again. Eight days they had been in this nightmarish barracks so far, and the feeling of aloneness was excruciating. Nurse Maguire and the woman who gave them food were the only people they had seen for a week, excluding one another, and given that everyone was recovering, no one was much company.

"Are you okay, Brother?"

"Yes. No." He sighed. "I don't know." He glanced down at Winry when she moved and whimpered a little in her sleep. "Shh."

Al gave him an appraising look. "This is really out of character for you, y'know."

"Out of character?" he repeated absently. "No, I don't think so."

Al gave him an _Explain?_ look.

Ed closed his eyes serenely and leaned back against the wall. "I wish we could have had time like this with them, you know? I mean... the people who went before us."

Well, clearly something was odd with Ed, who had never in Al's memory found the need to use a euphemism for death. "Don't think of it that way. It's morbid and inaccurate."

"It's _realistic,_ Al. What makes you so sure her time isn't ticking away right now, hm?"

"What makes you so sure it is?" he shot back.

Ed looked down at the sleeping girl in his lap and fingered a lock of her hair. "Remember how Nurse Incompetent told us she was at 106 this morning?"

"Mm-hm..."

"Her skin is warmer now than it was this morning."


	18. Jailbreak

The evening of the eighth day in quarantine, Nurse Maguire came back with a small kit of some sort in a paper package. She didn't do anything with it right away, just took everyone's temperature as usual and examined the fearful rash on Winry's back (and to a lesser extent her arms). The lightest touch there would wake her, and her pain was unmistakable when she did wake.

Ed watched helplessly as she came awake to this pain, her entire body tensing. Her fists would clench so tightly that there was a danger that her nails would slice open her palms, so he had figured out earlier today that it was better to hold her hands so that she couldn't do that to herself. At the very least, he felt like he was doing something.

"Oohh," she moaned, squeezing her eyes and hands tight as she became more aware of her surroundings. "Oh, stop. Stop. Stop."

"She's just examining you, Win," he said softly, so that only she could properly hear.

"It hurts..." She tried to move, to shrink away.

"Don't move," he said gently, then he looked up. "Do something," Ed ordered the nurse harshly.

"Hold her still," said Nurse Maguire, tearing open the little paper kit and withdrawing the various parts of a syringe, which she assembled and began filling with a clear fluid from a very small vial.

"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously as he realized what she was doing.

"Don't worry," said Nurse Maguire as she was swabbing a patch of skin with alcohol.

"What are you _doing_?" Ed repeated urgently, protective instinct flaring in his chest.

Nurse Maguire flicked the side of the syringe to get rid of possible air bubbles. "This won't harm her; it will just let her sleep."

Well, that didn't sound so terrible. Ed relaxed a little. "For how long?"

"Six to eight hours," she mumbled, distracted by performing the injection.

Ed did some quick mental math. If she came every day at seven, then seven was right now, so in six hours... "But then it will wear off in the middle of the night," he argued.

"Can't be helped. Unless any of you five know how to give an injection, she'll have to wait until morning for another."

"Well, Alec can," Mrs. Ouvert said suddenly, nudging her husband, who looked a little surprised to be called into attention. "Wasn't your dad diabetic?"

"Wha... Oh, yes, yes he was. My parents taught me how to give an injection when I was, what? Ten, I think. In case there was an emergency, you see."

"You still know how to do it?" Nurse Maguire verified.

"Yes."

"Then I can leave an injection kit in this room and you'll be able to give her one when this one wears off?"

"Yes. I'd love to help the poor girl, she was so caring to us when we were ill."

"Good, then." Nurse Maguire produced another little paper package and handed it to him, then hurried out, as was her way.

By then, Winry had fallen asleep again, but as opposed to her previous slumber, she didn't look like she was in pain anymore. She looked... peaceful.

* * *

Nurse Maguire popped her head in sometime in the morning of the ninth day. "You six are out of here at five o'cl—what, is she _still_ sick?" Surprised, she walked in more fully and went to look at Winry, touching her face. "Fever should have broken overnight," she mumbled to herself, "this is weird." She pulled out a thermometer and checked her temperature, but that only made her look more puzzled.

"What's happening to her?" Al asked urgently.

Nurse Maguire slipped a pair of gloves on and moved to examine Winry's back. "Oh."

"'Oh,' what?" Ed and Al said simultaneously.

"I'll be right back," said Nurse Maguire, and she got up and hurried out.

Ed and Al shared a significant look, then their eyes migrated to Winry's rash, in which Nurse Maguire had found some kind of interest.

"I don't understand," Al said after a minute.

"Me neither," said Ed. "Why did she just hurry off like that?"

"If Winry wasn't drugged she would probably know the answer."

"You're right. She has a lot more medical knowledge than she gets credit for."

Nurse Maguire came back with a brown bottle, a vial of clear liquid, a white card, and something that looked a lot like a pen. "Move," she ordered Ed, who was in her way.

"What are you doing now?" Al asked.

"What's wrong with Winry?" Ed demanded.

"Sh, both of you kids." She picked up the pen thing, which turned out to be a lancet, and pricked Winry's finger, dipping the blood onto the card. Then she dripped a drop from the vial of clear liquid onto the card, which made it turn fuchsia. "Okay, wonderful," she said to herself, then she uncapped the brown bottle and produced a cotton ball from her pocket. The contents of the brown bottle turned out to be plain rubbing alcohol, which looked a little scary as it sizzled against her skin. "It's an infection," Nurse Maguire explained finally. "That's why the fever didn't break when we expected it to. See the discoloration and oozing, here?" She pointed to what looked like nothing out of the ordinary to Ed and Al, so they took her word for it. "_The_ Fever's gone, but _this_ fever might be here a while longer." She stood up. "Anyway, you six will be out of here at five o'clock."

"But what about—?" Al protested.

"Five o'clock," Nurse Maguire repeated firmly.

Ed stood up as she moved to leave. "Winry is still sick!"

"And because it's no longer the Aerugean Fever, the government no longer cares," Nurse Maguire snapped as she walked out the door, locking it behind her.

Ed stared at the door for a few seconds, then all of a sudden his fist came around and connected with the wall. "Damn that bitch!"

"Brother, be careful not to break that wall."

"Who gives a shit about the fucking _wall?_ Did you not hear the same things I heard? She's cold-shouldering us, Al! We're going to have to cart her out of here regardless of the fact that she might still be dying! I hope the bitch _burns_!"

"Calm down. At least we get to go home now."

"How do we know anyone's even left there, Al?! We don't! We're alone! Fucking _alone. _Damn her..." He was visibly shaking with anger at this point, and when he looked at Al his eyes were burning with desperation.

Al was silent for a moment, and something beyond words was communicated, the kind of thing only those who have truly lost can understand. "I think..." said Al finally, and his words were carefully chosen, "I think I'm tired of living by this lady's rules. What say we make an exit?"

Ed smirked and stood up. "Well said, little brother."

* * *

_Clap. _

_Shhhzz._

_Clatter._

With a flash of alchemical light, the formerly locked door of room 089F collapsed into many small, metal, rectangular prisms. Out of the now-doorless room came two teenage boys, the taller laden with three traveling bags, while the shorter bore a sleeping teenage girl in his arms.

"Which way did we come from?" asked the taller.

The shorter, who surprisingly enough did not look in the least like he was holding a hundred-pounds-plus of young woman in his arms for the ease of his demeanor, considered the question for a moment, then pointed down the hall to his right. "I think this way," he said, already getting a head start on going in that direction.

A short, dark-haired woman poked her head out of the door-that-no-longer-was, and moments later a fairer-haired man and a chestnut-haired child peered out as well. They looked surprised but not angry that the boys were leaving; they understood.

"Hey!" someone shouted as the boys passed. Instead of slowing, they sped up. "Hey, where the hell do you kids think you're going?"

"This way!" Al shouted to Ed, and they skidded to turn down another hall, trying to lose their pursuers.

"What the...?" someone mumbled to herself as they passed. When the employee that had been chasing them in the first place came panting down the hall, the woman realized a breakout was going on and ran to raise an alarm.

"I see the main hall!" Al shouted. "We're close, hurry up!"

"I know!" Ed puffed. Winry's weight was wearing on his strength. "I see it too!"

Winry stirred then and looked at him. "Nn? Wha... 'r you do'n?"

"We're getting out of here, Winry," he panted.

"Wuh... why?"

"Just go back to sleep; we'll be somewhere safe when you wake up."

"'Kay." She closed her eyes again.

"There!" Ed shouted to Al. They were being pursued by at least six people now, jumping and weaving through the crowds of people just arriving at the quarantine facility to get to the exit. Wherever they passed by, people were giving them strange looks, and people were shouting at their backs as they walked away. ("Hey!" "Where are they going?" "Are those boys kidnapping that girl?" "He just shoved me!") Al arrived at the exit door first, but it was locked. Pausing for barely a moment to transmute the door out of his way, he glanced back at his brother, then dashed out into the sunlight of the train checkpoint, where a train was currently stopped and people were being brought out.

As Ed stepped through the doorway and sprinted to where Al ways standing, blinking in the sunlight, the train whistled.

"Quick," said Al, and they boarded the train at a dangerous moment just as it was beginning to move.

Panting loudly, both relaxed for a moment, then tried to act natural as they took booth and pretended as if they had been there the whole time.

Ed folded the blanket that Winry'd had over her shoulders and placed it under her head so she could sleep. Then he looked at Al. "That was a lot easier than I expected."

"Wonder where this train's going," said Al after he had caught his breath and was stowing the luggage above their heads.

"South," said Ed simply, "and that's all that matters. When this train stops next, we can get off and pay for our ticket legally."

"And then we can catch a train that will take us home," Al added.

Ed reached back and yanked the band out of his hair, which was a mess, and brushed his fingers through it, then started braiding again. "Home?" he repeated.

Al raised an eyebrow at him. "Of course, where else would we go?"

Ed glanced at Winry. "A hospital, perhaps?"

"Well, couldn't Granny take care of her? She's medically trained too. And Nurse Maguire said it was only an infection, right? It might go away on its own."

"So, straight home then."

Al smiled, a victorious grin. "Yep. Straight home."


	19. Alone

The two-day train ride home wasn't short, to say the least of it. Winry slept the whole time and wouldn't eat, the result of which was much angst and fretting on Ed and Al's parts. The train reached Resembool in the afternoon, so that the sunlight as they stepped off the train highlighted the sickly paleness of everyone's skin. (The boys glanced at each other's hair, by the scalp where it had lightened because of the Fever, and hoped it wasn't permanent.)

Despite all evidence to the contrary Winry had adamantly insisted that she was fine to walk on her own two feet. She kept her head down and dragged her feet, zombielike.

"I'll be glad to get home," Winry announced. "I can't wait to just lie down and sleep in a real bed."

"Me too," said Ed.

Al was distracted by staring at Luna's necklace in his palm.

"Hey, Al."

Al looked up suddenly and stared at Ed. "Hmm?"

"Are you looking forward to giving that back to her?" he asked suggestively.

Al didn't rise to the teasing. "It was a temporary loan," he said simply.

"Oh, don't bother him," said Winry, passing Ed a significant look.

Ed lowered his eyebrows at her raised ones. "What's that for?"

"Well, what are you on about? What difference does it make whether or not Al wants to see her again? You're one to talk, anyhow," and THIS significant look made more sense to him.

"You know I'm capable of fighting my battles without your assistance," said Al. "I seem to recall having done it before. Many times."

Winry smiled unapologetically.

* * *

"Granny! We're home!"

"Why're the lights off in the middle of the day?" Winry pulled the chain.

"It's quiet in here," Ed noted. "Where is everyone?"

Al went into the living room, while Ed went to take everyone's bags upstairs. There Al discovered Joli unattended, sitting rigidly on the couch, as was unfitting of a three-year-old like herself. "Whatchya doing?" he asked in that higher tone of voice reserved exclusively for small children.

Joli looked up at him tiredly. "Hi, big brother. I'm waiting. Sissy say she gonna fix it. She promise."

"Fix what?" he asked, morbidly intrigued.

"She gonna fix it. She gonna fix Brother. She gonna fix Gam'ma."

"What's wrong with Brother and Grandma?"

Joli shrugged. "They sleeping. Sissy gonna fix it. I'm gonna be good girl for Sissy."

"So that's why you're on the couch? You're being a good girl?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yep. I'm a good girl." She glanced down at her torso when her stomach rumbled, then looked at Al. "Big brother, my tummy is angry."

"You're hungry?" he corrected her in question form.

"Mm-hm."

Al came over and picked her up. "Let's go find something to eat, okay?"

* * *

"Meta, Eli, you in here?" Winry asked, poking her head into the room Meta and Joli shared (and which Eli frequented).

"What are you doing here," she responded in a rough voice devoid of intonation.

"Meta, why are you sitting here in the dark?" Winry asked, pulling the chain to light the room. Meta was sitting on her bed, looking like she hadn't bathed, changed, or even eaten in some time. There was a telltale dark strip of hair along her scalp, and it had even started growing out in the proper color, making it clear that Meta hadn't been sick yesterday. "Oh my God," said Winry incredulously, hurrying to her side. "What happened?"

Meta looked up with an empty expression, then looked down again. It was the same look Winry remembered seeing on Ed's face in the immediate aftermath of the human transmutation: the eyes of someone whose own memories are mortal agony.

"Where's Grandma? Where's Eli? Where's Joli?" Winry asked urgently.

"Joli is... around here somewhere..." she responded, sighing as if speaking was the greatest effort.

"And Grandma and Eli?"

Those eyes of agony again. "Went to pay my parents a visit."

"What? I mean—what do you mean? Where—where are they?!" Winry backed away, voice breaking.

"I mean I couldn't—I could... I... couldn't... fix it!" Instead of dissolving into tears, she stood up and punched the wall. "I COULDN'T SAVE THEM!"

* * *

"Grandma? You up here?" Ed asked, rapping on the door to her bedroom as he passed it. No answer, so he went to his and Al's room, dropped off their bags, and went to Winry's room to leave her traveling bag there. It was just as he was coming out that he heard Meta's enraged shout.

"...N'T SAVE THEM!"

"What's going on?" he asked Al after running down the stairs and finding his brother and Joli in the kitchen.

"I don't know," said Al, who looked freaked out. "I was just getting Jo-jo some food and I heard her shouting."

"Well, don't stand there staring at me!" Ed burst out, sweeping out of the room. He exploded into Meta's room and ran right into Winry as she was running out. "Whoa!" Ed grabbed her shoulders to steady her. "What happened?"

Winry wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. "She's—they're gone—let me go, Ed."

Ed didn't release her. "Who's gone? Where?"

"I said, let me GO!" She shoved him violently and fled upstairs.

Ed turned to Al, who had followed him out of the kitchen. "That was abrupt."

"Alright, you chase _her _and I'll figure out what's got Meta's underwear in a knot, how's that?"

"Good plan." Ed clapped his little brother's shoulder as he passed. "Winry!" he called, running after her.

She had apparently run up the stairs with the intent of going to her room, but she had stopped in front of the door to Pinako's room.

"Winry... what happened?"

Her fingers caressed the wood, but she seemed unwilling to open it. "Gone... I can't believe it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Grandma. She... she passed, Edward." Winry's head drooped. "I don't understand..."

Ed's jaw dropped. "What... what? How...?"

"You already know how, Ed. You knew the Fever had hit here first, didn't you? Did you tell Al?"

"I knew," he admitted. "We knew."

"You never tried to tell me."

"I assumed you knew."

"That's a lie. I can see it on your face."

"I was scared to tell you."

"And now it no longer matters." Winry's hand withdrew from the door. She dried her tears and started heading downstairs again.

Ed grabbed her arm. "Where are you going now?"

Winry sighed. "As much as I'd like to have a dramatic breakdown, I'm too old for it and there are people who need me to be brave." Recalling the look in Meta's eyes, she thought, _it's not the first time. _She tried to continue, but Ed's hand tightened around her wrist. "What do you want, Ed?"

"You know, you don't have to go alone." He paused, then attempted to complete his thought. "You try to 'be brave' and 'go it alone' and... I hate that."

"What?"

"It just reminds me of how much of a hindrance to your happiness I've been all these years. I never want to make you walk alone again. Don't you understand?"

"I do, but you're wrong all the same."

"I'm wrong?"

"Yes, you are." Winry didn't try to fake a smile; there was no point. "I won't be alone."


	20. QnA

**Shoulda mentioned this last chapter, but... I'M SORRY DON'T KILL ME PLZZZ! I WANNA LIIIVE! **

**So like, if you're mad at me for killing two people in the same family, wouldja do me a favor and count up how many characters you know of that have had the Fever? Don't forget the officer on the train and Nurse Maguire, both of whom were immune and therefore had survived it in the past. Now count how many characters died of the fever. And recall that the deathrate for the Fever was 18%. (Inspired jointly by a nonfiction book I read about the Black Plague, the scarlet fever as described by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and the yellow fever as described in the book Fever 1793. The "black/white" thing was totally pulled out of my ass, though. xP) **

**I was actually a little nice, since counting the three more characters who we find out are okay in this chapter, the actual comes closer to 14%. So no more whining. Let the characters do it for you.

* * *

**

"Meta, what's up?" Al asked. He stopped in the doorway, afraid to enter. He'd never seen her this emotional before. "Why were you yelling at Winry?"

"Wasn't yelling at her," she said gruffly. "Go away. And take the baby with you."

"I not a baby," said Joli indignantly. "I'm a _girl._"

"Yes, we know," said Al patiently, patting her head. She was blissfully unaware that no one cared what she thought of herself, and Al kept it that way. "Meta, you can't just pout about... well, whatever it is you're throwing a fit over... without expecting everyone else to be concerned!"

For his effort, he was rewarded by a book flying at his head. "Fuck you! You don't know anything!"

Al dodged it. "I'm sure I know a lot more than you realize. At the very least, I know how to dodge flying objects thrown by pissed-off little girls. And I have dealt with way more of my brother's temper tantrums than he cares to admit. You're not unique, Meta."

"You don't know ANYTHING!" she repeated at the top of her voice. "Your mom didn't die when you were practically too little to really know her—"

"Actually—"

"And your dad didn't abandon you and get himself killed fighting for an idiotic 'greater cause'—"

Al chuckled a little at the irony. "Well—"

"AND YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO SIT BY YOUR BIG BROTHER'S BEDSIDE AND WATCH HIM DIE!"

"... What?"

"YOU FUCKING HEARD! NOW GET OUT!" She threw another book at him, and that was her last one. Most of the books were in the living room on the shelf.

Al stumbled back as if pushed, though the book hadn't connected with its target. "He—what?" he asked, looking dazed.

"I wish you'd told him in a way that didn't involve screaming," said Ed quietly behind him.

Al whirled around. "Is she _serious_?"

Ed gave him a 'duh' look. "Does she seem serious enough to you?"

The front door opened and closed loudly, and a familiar voice rang out. "Meta? Jo-jo? Where are you two? I brought dinner!"

"Woona!" shouted Joli, wriggling free from Al's grip and running toward the sound.

"Luna?" Al said, his tone rising with inappropriate-for-the-situation gladness.

"Luna?" Winry repeated disdainfully (she'd never particularly appreciated Luna's peculiarity, and by the look on Ed's face she wasn't the only one who thought so).

"What the hell is that parasite doing here?" Ed asked.

"Don't be a jackass, Brother," said Al, irritated, as he pushed around Ed to go see Luna.

"Is big sissy in her room still?" Luna asked, (even she had succumbed to the high 'baby' tone of voice, a far cry from her usual breathy, intense whisper).

"She's angwy," said Joli. "She yelling at big brother. But I was a good girl."

"She's yelling at Eli?" Luna repeated, sounding disturbed by the news. "That's a bad sign..."

"Not _that_ big brother! He not here!" said Joli. "She yelling at Awlfonz and Winwy!"

"Alphonse and Winry aren't here either," said Luna.

"Au contraire," said Al, leaning in the doorway. "We just got home."

Luna stared at him for a second. Their eyes met. On another occasion she might have run forward and hugged him hello, but this wasn't the time for joyous reunion, and she didn't do it. "Al..."

He looked downward. "Luna—"

"What the hell are you doing here?" Ed interrupted.

"The question is, what aren't _you_ doing here?" she shot back, flying into a temper. "I must've sent you a thousand letters, and called your hotel a million times! Do you have any idea what kind of hell these girls have been through without you?!"

"You didn't answer my question!"

"You didn't answer mine!"

"I've been taking care of them! How do you think they've been eating? Joli can't take care of herself and Meta won't!"

Ed snorted. "Bullshit. You're fifteen years old, not exactly a qualified caretaker."

"Better than nothing, like _you _were! Now why don't you tell me where_ you _were? Having a damn good time, I hope!"

"We were in a military quarantine facility! We weren't exactly blowing bubbles and eating ice cream!"

"Yeah, and the dog ate your homework, too, I'm sure!"

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Maybe I would be_ calling_ you one, if you had ever picked up the _phone!_"

Winry let go of Ed's hand, which she had been holding since they came downstairs, and stormed forward to get in Luna's face. "Don't talk to him like that!"

"And what are _you_ gonna do about it? Stick your head in the sand and ignore everyone else's suffering? You're as guilty as him in this!"

"We weren't IGNORING them! We couldn't LEAVE! If my head is in the sand, at least I can be glad it's not up my ass like yours!"

"SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU!"

A shocked silence followed Al's shout. Nobody had ever heard him sound so infuriated. Even Al looked surprised at himself.

He cleared his throat and said, in a softer voice. "Luna, I don't understand what you're doing here, but it would probably be better if you weren't. We only just found out. We need some time to... process. Can you please just go home?"

She tried to catch his eye and see what he was thinking, but Al stared downward. She sighed. "I can't."

"Like hell you—"

"Winry!" said Al sharply. "Luna, why can't you?"

"My mom kicked me out."

"What? Why?"

Luna sighed. "It's a long story, the end of which is, I can't go home or these two suffer."

"We've got time," Al said expectantly.

"I found out from the grapevine that your Grandma had passed..." Luna looked at Winry with apologizing eyes. "I wasn't sick yet, at that point. Don't hang out with people to catch the fever from. I came here. She—" Luna inclined her head in the direction of Meta's room— "was a total mess, wouldn't leave her brother's side, totally in denial, couldn't take care of Joli. I asked my parents to help them. Without Pinako they have no guardian, no money, no way to take care of themselves. You guys were nowhere to be found. And if we hadn't intervened, they would have been taken by child services. But my mom didn't want to help. She said she didn't want three more mouths to feed, said I was greedy as it is, and that they could just sort themselves out for all she cared." She bit her lip. "We had a really loud row about it."

"And she kicked you out because she was mad?" Winry guessed.

"No. I left of my own free will."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It does if you pay attention. My mother said she didn't want more _mouths_ to feed. So I offered to take one of those burdens out of her hands. And in return, she's been buying the food we need and she is currently appealing for guardianship of them so they can't get taken away by the state. It works well for both of us. I was always a source of consternation for her anyway. She can't even spell love let alone feel it."

Everyone stared at her.

Luna stared back. "What?"

"You left home..." Ed said slowly.

"At _fifteen_," Winry put in.

"To take care of three little kids," Al continued.

"To whom you have no obligation," said Ed.

Luna nodded. "That's about right."

"And nothing about that seems odd to you," said Winry.

Luna shook her head.

"Do you ever wonder why everyone thinks you're insane?" Ed asked rhetorically. He answered his own question: "It's because you're _insane_."

"Where have you been sleeping?" Winry asked.

"Here, of course. Joli's too little to be left alone. She needs twenty-four-hour supervision. And obviously, Meta can't function right now. Since I volunteered for the job, I'm not going to do it halfway."

Everyone stared some more.

"_Why_?" Ed asked, unable to comprehend it.

"Why what?"

"Why would you do that for them?" Winry elaborated for him. "You don't owe them anything. You didn't have to care at all. Why?"

Luna turned around and went to the counter where she had deposited her shopping bags a few minutes prior. She started unloading the bags and putting the food away in the right cupboards, but she didn't speak.

"Tick, you didn't answer Winry's question."

"One time, I accidentally stepped on a ladybug," she began. "When I realized my mistake, I started to cry. It was so sad. The poor bug hadn't done me any harm. She or he was just going along with his or her existence with no idea that the hour of his or her death was upon her or him. In that instant, I had ended any chance that ladybug had of a future." Her voice wavered like she was truly in grief over the death of an insect. "I thought,_ I hope I never again have to be the reason another living creature loses its future like that poor ladybug. _(I named it Terry. That way I don't have to know whether it was a boy or a girl.) When I found out about Pinako, I knew this was it. I couldn't let them get taken by children's services. That would ruin their lives. They'd rot in an orphanage until eighteen. It would be miserable. So in remembrance of Terry the ladybug, I'm going to help Meta and Joli however I can."

Three identically gaping teenagers watched her put the food away.

"Are you running for saint or something?" Ed asked.

Luna looked a little surprised by his comment, and not in the good way. "You're not as cute as you think you are," she mumbled, looking down.

"Jackass alert," Winry hissed in Ed's ear.

"What, did I hurt her feelings?"

"Did your brain fall out of your skull this morning?" She grabbed his arm and marched him out of the room.

"Luna," said Al breathlessly, stepping toward her to hug her. "He didn't mean it like that," he whispered in her ear.

She sniffed a little like she was trying very hard not to cry. "It's so hard... being alone all the time and then whenever I talk to people... they say things... hurtful things."

"You... are... amazing," he said fervently. "My brother can be a jerk sometimes, but he means well for the most part. He was just having trouble comprehending the devotion it took to leave your family for someone else's sake. Ed could never imagine a situation where he would leave his family, not if his life depended on it—and I mean that very literally. Both of you take caring to a fault, but you're not wrong just because you're not him. Please... don't cry, okay? I can't handle it."

"I won't cry." She shook her head to emphasize the point. "I won't cry. Big girls don't cry." She wiped her eyes. "Besides, my lover—remember the one I told you about before you left? Well, he came back."


	21. Misunderstood Tears

**Yeesh! This chapter was SO stressful to write! It took me forever and I didn't really feel 'inspired,' so I HOPE it turned out okay anyway. Lie to me if it didn't! (No, actually please don't!) **

* * *

"Okay, I get the picture," Ed said dully as Winry pulled him out of the kitchen, which was the center of the house, through the hall that led to Meta's bedroom (which had not existed prior to Ed and Al transmuting that addition to the house) and past it, around the back way to the staircase, and up the stairs. "I get it, you're separating me from the situation. But what are you dragging me all around the house for? Is this necessary?" He tugged against her as she continued pulling his arm and leading him through the house, not glancing back. "_Winry._ What are you doing?" She continued dragging him around without saying anything. Quickly Ed realized where she was headed: Pinako's room. He halted, no longer allowing himself to be pulled along like an animal. "Enough, Winry. Talk to me."

Winry stopped then and stared ahead, but didn't say anything.

"Winry?"

Silence.

"Winry. Look at me."

She was shaking slightly.

"Are you crying?"

Finally, just as Ed was giving up on getting a response of any kind, Winry turned around in a blur of movement and less kissed his lips than attacked his face. There were tears on her face; Ed could taste them on her lips. Face aflame, he flailed a little and tried to figure out how to get her off without hurting her feelings. In the end he took the Occam's razor approach and simply put his hands on either side of her face to pull her away. However, she grabbed his wrists and freed her face from his grasp, then turned her attentions to his neck.

"Winry, what's gotten into you?" he asked breathlessly.

"Please," she mumbled against his skin, "just this once, don't overthink. Don't think at all. Just..." Her words trailed off and were replaced by the feeling of her tongue working against her skin.

Feeling unsteady, Ed threw his arm out and braced it against the nearest wall, which was actually the door to Pinako's room. "I don't understand."

"You don't have to."

"Is this why you pulled me all the way upstairs?" Her fingers dragged down his chest and left tingling wakes. Heat flashed to his groin. "Oh, God..." he groaned. "Please stop."

Her fingers paused and she tilted her head downward sadly, closing her eyes. A few tears dripped silently onto his shirt.

Ed shrank back. "No, no, don't cry at me!" he pleaded weakly.

"I... I..." Words failed her, and she closed the space he'd created by stepping backward, pressing her body irresistibly against his. Her lips found that sensitive spot just below and behind his ear.

"Winry..." he breathed. "What the hell is going on in your head?" The mixed messages were simply incomprehensible to him.

Her breath was hot against his ear. "Does something always have to be?"

* * *

"So where do you sleep?"

Luna looked up from the pan of vegetables she was stir-frying. "Pardon?"

Al temporarily re-covered the pot of rice on the stove after stirring it. "You've been sleeping here, right? Whose room have you been sleeping in?"

"No one's. I wasn't going to sleep in Pinako's or Eli's rooms for obvious ghost-related reasons. And..." She paused, looked down at the food, then back at him. "I didn't want to take yours, Ed's, or Winry's room. Partially because I hoped you guys would come home soon, mostly because it felt like stealing your space. I'm not a thief. I was trying to help you all, not take advantage of your home."

"You didn't answer my question," he pointed out.

"It doesn't make a difference." She removed the food from the heat and grabbed two plates from the cupboard, one for Meta and one for Joli. Everyone else could get their own food if they were hungry, but she certainly wasn't.

"I still would like to know," Al persisted, his curiosity piqued by her withholding of information.

"Hmm," she grunted noncommittally as she brought Meta's food out of the kitchen (Meta never left her room).

Al followed her and listened to the conversation.

Luna pulled on the light for the hundredth time today (Meta preferred to mourn in the dark and would turn it off when no one was paying attention). "Meta, it's dinnertime. Stir-fried veggies and rice."

Meta groaned loudly. "Already? I don't remember ever having eaten so often in my life."

"Three times a day," Luna said patiently. "Look, I know you don't have much of an appetite and I'm not gonna make you eat the whole thing if you don't want to, but you have to have some nutrition. Otherwise when you grow into a teenager you'll turn pointy like me."

"That wouldn't be so bad. You're pretty, you know."

Luna chuckled a little. "Just eat." She patted Meta's head, then stood and exited the room. She smiled a little when she caught Al looking at her from the doorway, also smiling vaguely, then suddenly something seemed to occur to her and she dropped her jaw and stared outright.

"What? What did I do?" he asked nervously.

* * *

"_A passion-filled glare is fraught with emotion!" Luna grabbed both of Al's wrists and pulled him so that he had to drop to his knees in a crouch or he would fall. Then she pulled him closer until their noses were almost touching, and stared in his golden eyes with her dreamy silver ones. She spoke in a soft whisper: "Love is a deep and complicated emotion. Only true lovers can look into each other's eyes, even when the current of their thoughts is filled with anger and frustration, and see the person with whom they share an innate connection, really see—not just see, but observe, notice, view! When you are truly in love, there is a tie, a string—a connection between the eyes of you and your lover—this is what a man sees as his lover walks down the aisle with the wedding march playing—have you never noticed the face of the groom at that moment? How his face lights up and he grins the whole time as he looks at the woman with whom he wishes to spend the rest of his life? You can tell, when you look at his face, that there is no one else in the room, for him. It is only him and her and the rest of forever!" She paused to breathe, then continued. "It is strongest then, but there are other moments when you can see the string which ties two lovers together, and if you truly train your eyes, you can see the string even at moments when the casual observer would see naught but anger. In this way, even an infuriated glare can be charged with the passion of love!" _

* * *

"Why were you looking at me?" she asked.

"I... don't... know?" He stepped back for no reason other than to give her space. "Why?" He was made more nervous by her ambiguous stare, and his own inexperience in the ways of women.

She shook her head, then walked away.

Al followed her into the kitchen. "Did I just accidentally screw something up, Luna?"

"Nope," she said simply. She went to the door and he saw a small satchel sitting on the floor off to the side where it wouldn't be in the way. The satchel was just big enough to fit her black-and-white notebook, and perhaps a book about palmistry, a pirate treasure map, 254 paperclips, or nine swordfish sandwiches. "I'm going out for the night," she announced, picking up the satchel. "You coming?"

He took her hand in what she hoped wasn't a strictly friendly gesture. "Of course."

* * *

Winry could tell that Edward was too confused to be properly enjoying himself, though she was using every trick she had learned since the very first time they had kissed. He continually asked what was going on, what she was thinking, why she was doing this, but there was no answer to those questions. Nothing she could explain in words, at least: Finding out that her grandmother had died meant that she was now the only surviving Rockbell anywhere. The feeling of aloneness was unbearable. She needed Ed right now like she had never known she could need anything or anyone. But how could she explain that to him? It sounded silly and cliché even in her head, such that she couldn't imagine trying to say it out loud. However, as long as she could drive him to distraction (and if the groaning noises of pleasure perforating his incessant questions about her motives were any indication, she was succeeding in just that), she wouldn't have to attempt to explain herself.

"Damn it..." he panted in her ear. "You're driving me c-... c-... cra-... zy..." He faltered at the C because her hands had stolen their way under his shirt and were snaking up over his tense abdomen. "Win... ry... stop."

"Let me..." she whispered in his ear, exhaling hot breath there. He shivered. "Let me have my way. Don't be so... nervous." His shirt was being tugged upwards the higher her hands got.

He closed his eyes, experiencing the sensation of her exploring. "I give up," he sighed finally.

Words she'd been aching to hear the whole time. "No more whining 'Stop!' and 'I'm confused!' then," she instructed.

"Fine," he said shortly, then caught hold of her chin with his right hand and pulled her face away from his neck so he could kiss her properly, while his left hand rested chastely on her hip.

She smiled against his lips and let her hands travel around his body, then she dragged her fingers down his back to listen to the noise he made, a sudden intake of breath, and to feel his body's reaction, a rippling of his muscles not unlike a cat.

He responded by laughing a little and moving the hand at her hip so that he could pull her flush against him, then he started kissing her neck for a change. "I've missed this."

She kept her eyes open even though they wanted to flutter closed. "We were sick. We couldn't."

"True. And even right now, we shouldn't." He sighed and lifted his head to look in her eyes, and his flesh hand left the small of her back so he could use his thumb to wipe her tears away. "You look tired."

"I feel tired," she admitted.

He shifted his weight. "Well—"

"No!" she said quickly. "Don't stop yet!"

He looked down at her with questioning eyes.

"I mean, just a little longer. Just a little farther. Please?"

Ed touched his lips to hers ever so lightly, then pulled away and frowned a little. "Since when am I unable to say no when you say please?"


	22. Romulus & Julianne

**If you can't figure out the not-so-subtle Shakespeare reference (I 'disguised' it in the first place since who knows if Amestris really has a Shakespeare?) in this chapter, quite a lot of it won't make sense to you.**

**Have I done the disclaimer lately? Well, I still don't own FMA. Since Shakespeare's plays are now in the public domain, I don't actually need to do a disclaimer for him though. I could claim that I own his plays, but I don't think anyone would believe me. ^^' Except you readers, right, CAUSE YOU WORSHIP ME O.— riiiight?**

* * *

"Do you know why 2286 was my lucky number?"

"I figured you chose it rand—"

"Nothing is random, Alphonse, learn that now."

"So why did you—?"

"Once, a long time ago, I laid down on the ground. On my back, like this..." She dropped to the grass and put her hands behind her head to support it. "I looked at the stars. There were so many that night. It was a cloudless, moonless night. I thought, I wonder how many stars there are in the sky? So I started counting."

"And you counted 2286? That's hard to believe."

"Two hundred fifty-four, actually, which is a factor of 2286. After that I fell asleep."

"What makes that number's factor so lucky?"

"Dunno. I was just thinking, I should create a new lucky number. Oh, sit on the ground with me, you look all weird and tall from this angle."

"Okay." He obeyed her and sat cross-legged on the grass. "How does one create a lucky number?"

"I like the star counting method myself." She looked at the sky and became silent and still, except for her lips, which moved subtly as she counted. For fear of breaking her stride, Al never interrupted, even as the time wore on and he became sleepy (but oddly enough, never bored).

"Two hundred seventy-four," she announced.

"Is that your new lucky number?"

"It's _special_, all right," she specified.

There was a lull in conversation.

"Luna?"

She looked over at him."Hmm?"

Al didn't—couldn't—quite meet her eyes. "When exactly did the Fever hit here?"

She blinked, then frowned and tried to count backwards. Numbers more complex than the one-after-the-other variety had a tendency to elude her. "Couple weeks, I suppose. Time runs together. Why?"

Yeah, he had figured as much. There was a lighter strip of white in her platinum hair near the scalp, but it had grown out into its natural color and that thin strip, only a week and a half's (give or take for the days it took for the glands to return to normal during recovery) growth before the color had darkened again. That thin slice of incorrectly shaded hair was now the only evidence that she had been sick. "Who... took care of things?"

By his tone, she knew he meant Pinako and Eli. "I did. Just like everything else."

"How? Monetarily, I mean?"

"I explained the situation to Father Dannell. He helped me set it up so that I don't have to come up with money right away. I was counting partially on the fact that your brother has money, and partially on Pinako's will. She left pretty much everything to Winry, for obvious reasons—it's doubtful that she'd had the chance or inclination to leave anything to the Erlichs, but I think she left you Elrics (oh, hey, Erlich and Elric sorta rhyme!) some odds and ends in any case."

"You were counting on Brother and Winry coming back?" Al asked. "But you were so angry with them... I got the impression that you didn't think they were _ever_ coming back."

"I didn't have another option." She looked up at the sky, then stood up and brushed off her jeans. "We'd better get back," she said softly.

"Hmm," said Al with a nod of agreement, despite realizing that before he had left last time, she had never gone home so early in the night. "So, you just sort of crossed your fingers, then?" He drew in a breath to say something else, but hesitated.

"Go on, ask me," she encouraged with an air like she knew what he was going to say.

"What if we _weren't _okay, though?" He thought of poor Gabby, now essentially blind because of the Fever. And Nurse Maguire, saying, "You guys are very lucky... I had to deal with three deaths today."

"What would you have done it we hadn't come back?"

Luna tilted her head heavenward and stared at the place where her friend the moon would have been if it weren't the new moon tonight. "Like I said, your continued MIA status was never an option. You had to come home."

"Life just doesn't work on pure stubbornness like that," said Al. "I should know. I've tried it. All we got for our trouble was metal bodies."

"I knew there was something odd about your armor. That's a story you'll have to tell me sometime."

"Sometime, I will."

There was another silence. The interesting thing about talking to Luna in the night like this was that simple everyday conversation seemed important and special, and the silences even more so, such that not every silence needed to be filled. The point was to be thoughtful, and the conversation to discuss those thoughts if they needed discussing.

"I wasn't being stubborn," Luna said after thinking it over. "I knew there was a possibility that you three wouldn't come home. I would have had to cross that bridge when I came to it. There's something really audacious about hope, though: The more it fades, the harder it is to get rid of. If whatever Powers that be—" she continued staring at the sky, while Al kept her from tripping by keeping hold of her elbow— "had decided that you... that _you..._" the first you was plural; the second was singular, "...that you weren't going to come home, I think that Power would have taken me too." Even if she had had to initiate it herself: suicide had never been an invalid option.

"I don't think God would have taken you simply because you don't think you could have gone on alone." He was speaking from experience: What child believes that he can go on without his mother until his mother is already gone? "It's a nice thought, and it brings up the question of destiny, too. But life just doesn't work that way."

"Rattlearrowe thought so," Luna shrugged. "Case in point, _Romulus and Julianne. _Do you really think that Julianne could have lived a normal life after she woke up and realized Romulus was dead? Do you think she could have walked out of the tomb and shouted, 'Ta-da, I'm actually alive!' No, because her life was completely ruined by that time. Romulus was dead, and Romulus had killed Vichy so she couldn't have married him either, and if she had lived she most certainly would have been assassinated by the Montauhughs because she'd pretty much brought hell and high water to her doorstep by that point. Furthermore, mentally she just wouldn't have been able to function. She couldn't live without Romulus... so the gods didn't force her to."

"But she killed herself," Al argued. "I don't think the point was that she was _destined_ to die. I think the point was that she _defied_ her destiny by making the ultimate sacrifice to be with Romulus."

"Why couldn't it be both?"

Al frowned thoughtfully. "Explain, please," he said after a moment.

"Julianne was so in love with Romulus that, from a predestination standpoint, his death directly _necessitated_ hers. Regardless of the way Romulus might've died, Julianne still would've followed him. It was her choice _and_ her destiny."

"Fair enough. So how does that circle back to you?" Al asked. "Are you saying that you would have killed yourself if we hadn't come back?"

"Most likely." Luna never lied.

"Then you haven't learned Rattlearrowe's lesson at all. Half the point was that if Romulus had waited just a little longer before he drank the poison, Julianne would have woken up and they could have escaped Revona."

"But if I was sure you were dead—"

"Romulus was sure Julianne was dead, too. He was _wrong,_ yes, but he was _sure_."

"I would wait until I knew it was true."

"When would you know? When would you have stopped waiting? How would you be sure that you weren't doing it a moment too early?"

Luna stared ahead at the road. They were almost home now. "I would have known. I believe in destiny. I would have known." She wiped her eyes with the hand that wasn't in Al's at the moment. "This is all hypothetical anyway. You're here, the issue is moot. There won't ever be a scare like this again."

"You don't know that," Al pointed out cynically. "What if there was? And what if you were like Romulus, and you acted too soon? We... we... I would have to be the Julianne."

"I'm sorry..." she whispered. "I'll never ever think about doing that, ever again. Even if I have to wait forever."

_She would wait forever for me,_ Al rephrased in his mind. _Wonder what that really means?_

Quietly because it was so late, Luna used the key under the mat to unlock the door and let them both in. Her eyes were fixed in the direction of the addition Ed and Al had made, actually towards Meta's room. She didn't explain why she headed that way; merely said goodnight to Al and departed.

* * *

In just over two weeks, Luna and Meta had established a nighttime routine, without which Meta couldn't get to sleep. (Or, more accurately, couldn't sleep without having nightmares.) It went something like this:

Luna would come in after Joli had gone to sleep. She would sit next to Meta on the bed and wrap her arms around the child, who was almost always crying. (She had explained once, that the night made her think Eli more, since he had died at about 11:45pm.)

Luna only had to say one thing to make Meta stop crying, always the same words: "It's just you, me, and the moon. Tell us a story."

And Meta would wipe her eyes and begin:

"In kindergarten, I was always made fun of by this mean boy, Zeke. He made me miserable. Whenever I tried to punch him—I always tried to punch him—Mrs. Singh would say I was the one being mean. (I hated Mrs. Singh.) One time during recess, we were playing kickball, and it was my turn to kick, but Zeke said it was his turn, so he pushed me and I fell and skinned my knee and started bleeding. Mrs. Singh still didn't believe that he did it on purpose—he DID! Brother's seat in his classroom was right by the window, and he saw the whole thing while he was supposed to be listening about history— (nobody cares about history) so when his class was their turn for recess, well we were just going inside, and we were lining up and Brother walked right up to Zeke and..."

It was a different story every time. Luna insisted that Meta think of a new happy memory to recount every single night. She never interrupted, even when Meta got off on tangents or left holes in the tale, because the point wasn't that Luna wanted to learn it, but that Meta needed to remember.

After Meta fell asleep, Luna would quietly steal out of the room. She would get her special black-and-white marble notebook, and she would write down word-for-word whatever Meta had said that night. (Luna was incredibly auditory, something only two people in the world knew: herself, and Al, who had realized it months ago when Luna had recounted a conversation between herself and Ed in such perfect detail that Al could almost hear his brother's every sarcastic word.)

This particular night went almost according to schedule, until the moment when Luna snuck out of Meta's room and realized she wasn't alone.

He was sitting on the floor by the door with his head leaning against the wall. "That was a nice story. Do you two do that every night, Tick?"

"Edward, what are you eavesdropping for?"

As she started walking away to go get her notebook, Ed stood and followed. "I heard you and Al come in. And since my own bed is currently occupied, I figured that instead of staring and wondering what the hell to do with her, I might as well come downstairs and see what's up."

"Why is Winry sleeping in your bed?" Luna looked at him and squinted against the semidarkness, as if expecting to see the words "I'M HAVING SEX WITH HER" printed across his forehead. All she saw was the fact that he was fully dressed, not a telling hair out of place.

"It's nothing like that," Ed said with disappointingly transparent honesty. "It's just that she was tired because she's still not entirely over that infection she had. As far as I can tell she had no idea what she was doing—jumped me in the hallway, then, through a series of circumstances NONE OF WHICH ARE MY FAULT she ended up passed out in my bed so..." He chuckled a little and trailed off.

Luna smiled knowingly at him. "I knew you two would get together eventually."

"Everyone but me, apparently," he grumbled. "So what up with the notebook?"

Luna ignored him and continued writing.

"Are you writing down the story she just got through telling you?" he asked, peering over the book's edge. "What the hell for? You just heard it."

"Don't sound so personally affronted, as if it matters to you," said Luna. "Someday I will print and bind this, and after she's gotten too old to remember him in this clarity, this book will be priceless."

"How do you know she wants to remember? It seems to me—at least judging by her reaction today—that what she really wants is to forget."

"People who desire to forget will be distraught when they realize they can't remember," she said softly. "Don't you ever wish someone had done this when you lost your mother?"

Ed leaned away and looked at her, a little surprised. "What?"

"Then are you implying you've forgotten nothing at all?" Luna said rhetorically.

"There was one time..." he said after a moment's silence. "It was... kind of complicated. I had to ask Pinako what color my mother's hair was. I couldn't be _sure_... I don't know what color her eyes were, either. The exact length of her hair... the sound of her voice..."

"It's not your fault," Luna said solemnly. "It's been years, Edward. Memories fade."

"Yeah," he sighed, then gravitated slowly away and into the living room. He appeared in the doorway a minute later with a thick book in his hands, at down at the table next to her, and started reading. Luna busied herself with recalling what Meta had told her that evening, and there was a long silence then, the monotony of which was broken (or perhaps enhanced) by the occasional sound of pages turning, the clock ticking, and Luna's pencil scratching.

Eventually Luna finished writing, put her pencil inside, closed the book, and flexed her fingers. When she happened to glance over at what Ed was reading, Luna did a double take at the snippet of words her eyes had caught:

"_Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;_

_Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;_

_Being vex'd a sea nourish'd with lovers' tears:_

_What is it else? a madness most discreet,_

_A choking gall and a preserving sweet._"

"You're reading Rattlearrowe?" Luna asked incredulously.

"Yeah, actually: it was weird, just as I was coming downstairs I passed Al sneaking up. He asked the oddest question of me, something like, 'do you think Julianne was destined to die once she woke up and realized that Romulus was dead?' Well, I don't really remember the play too well. I thought I'd reread it just for kicks." He sighed. "I had forgotten how much of a dick Romulus is, though. First he says he loves Roza, then as soon as he catches the eye of Julianne, he forgets all about Roza. And what of this deep, resounding love he supposedly had for Roza? Screw her, Julianne's got bigger tits, I suppose. I don't see how this is supposed to be some deeply moving love story, at any rate. I don't think Romulus ever really loved her."

Luna smiled vaguely.

"What? What are you looking at me for? Do you know something I don't?"

"I know why Alphonse asked you that," she said simply.

"Why? Tell me."

Luna shrugged. "Ask him yourself later."

* * *

**There sure seem to be a lot more stars than should be visible in the sky, aren't there?Luna didn't actually count that many. To understand this one, play with the math: Add the numbers 9, 12, 15, 22, 5, 25, 15, 21, 1, and 12 (here's a hint: all these numbers are less than 26!) and you get 137. Multiply that by 2 to get 274, the number of stars Luna counted. Meaningful? Yes, indeed! Crap, have I said too much?**


	23. Scented Memories

**Short chapter, and fairly uninspired, I know... Sorry! I've got a soul-killing AP test tomorrow and I'm terrified (even though I got a 5 on the practice exam). Wish me luck. Hopefully after the test, writing will be a little easier. Hopefully I'll get to update my other ongoing fic, PARALLEL... and I'm sorry if you've been reading that one and are sick of me not updating it!**

* * *

Ah... it was so peaceful... comfortable, serene... As Winry slowly came awake, total relaxation was her first conscious sensation. Everything was perfect.

The first sensory detail her body noted was the scent, familiar and reminiscent of happiness and the occasional moment of daring joy, so seemingly unfitting of her life that she was convinced she had actually stolen another, more normal teenager's existence (but this was no permanent feeling, as it only lasted until Edward inevitably begged her to stop, then tried—and failed—to be subtle about his dash to the nearest bathroom, and no three guesses on what he did while he was locked in there—though it was nice to know she had the ability to affect him in that way).

But the scent, the scent!

This was unmistakably the smell of Edward, the taste of his skin. No wonder it reminded her of making out with him! Upon further exploration of her memories, Winry recalled the explanation as to why she was in his bed—

And was promptly hit by a truck.

Emotionally, at least.

But there wasn't time to fully explore this pain (in a sick way, however, she wanted to, like poking a dead animal with a stick) because the painful remembrance of the day's events was simultaneously accompanied with another comforting smell. Not like Edward's, not even close, because this smell was not the smell that came with erotic memories of hot breath (and gooseflesh shivers) and lips (sometimes gentle, sometimes needy) and hands (oh, God, Edward's hands!) on her overheating, oversensitive skin. This sense of comfort was not the comfort of stolen moments in secret places. It was completely other: a smell like home, like growing up, like hard knocks and the occasional unnecessary bandage (because kid logic dictates that boo-boos don't hurt once they've got a bandage). This was the smell Winry associated with the get-tough-or-get-out woman who put up with as much shit as she dished out—

Pinako removed the pipe from her lips and exhaled a cloud of smoke. "Are you done screwing around yet?"

"Grandma," Winry breathed, tears filling her eyes.

"Don't cry like a little bitch. One would think you'd have done it enough while you were harassing poor Edward."

"What?" Winry said blankly.

"Is that your idea of _consensual_? He was begging you to stop, Winry. You fuckin'..." she paused and puffed on the pipe again, "raped him."

"He agreed to it," Winry said meekly.

"He didn't agree, he just gave up. Coercion is not consensuality. You sexually assaulted him."

"I... I..." she stuttered. Something was wrong.

"I'm disappointed in you. As soon as you find out I've kicked the bucket, you take advantage of the poor kid? And you did it right by my room, too, _while thinking of me. _Not only are you a whore, you're a whore who's disrespected my memory."

"I'm not a whore!" Winry started to cry. "Why are you saying these things, Grandma?"

"No, you're right," Pinako fired back. She was just getting started. "You're _not_ a whore. Because at least whores get _paid_!"

"Stop it!" Winry sobbed.

"You've been a burden on me your whole life! You think I _wanted_ to take care of my son's useless, ungrateful spawn? You think I wouldn't have gladly dumped you off at the orphanage if it weren't for my reputation? Do you think ANYONE would ever want YOU?"

"Stop it..." she whimpered helplessly.

"NO ONE WANTS YOU! In fact, I'm GLAD I'M DEAD so I don't have to deal with you anymore! NO ONE WANTS YOU! You even had to force yourself on Edward! YOU'RE LAZY, INSOLENT, STUPID—"

"SHUT UP!"

"WINRY!"

"Aaah!" She sat straight up in bed, her eyes snapping open.

"Good God, Winry, what were you dreaming about?" he asked when he realized she was awake.

"What?" Sleep made colors and thoughts and her voice blend. Confusion reigned above realizations, which was slow in coming.

"Winry," he said, slowly enunciating for her benefit. "Are you okay? What were you dreaming about?"

"Al?" she asked in bewilderment. "Where did Ed go?"

"What are you talking about? Brother was never here. I wonder why he went downstairs... and hey—why are you sleeping in his bed anyway?"

"I don't remember," she said honestly. "We were just... and then I fell asleep... Al, why're you awake?"

By his tone she knew he was rolling his eyes. "How could I stay asleep?"

"Huh?"

"Didn't you know...?" he asked uncertainly.

"Know what? Tell me."

He seemingly changed the subject: "What were you dreaming about?"

"Why...? Oh, I wasn't talking in my sleep, was I?"

"Only screaming and..." he reached out and used his thumb to brush her cheek, wiping away tears. "Crying."

"I'm... I'm sorry for waking you up, Al."

"You didn't mean to, Winry." He sat down on the bed next to her. "What did you dream about that had you so upset?"

"I just... It was... oh, God, Al!" He waterworks broke free again, and she threw her arms around him. "I can't believe she's gone! It's like a... a... horrible dream and... and... and... and I can't... wake up!"

He patted her back softly. "I wish you _were_ dreaming, Winry. I'm so sorry..."

He held her until she was able to speak again. "I... I'm alone now, right?"

"What are you talking about? Of course you're not alone! You've got me, and Brother, and Jo-jo and Meta are practically family now too! What made you think you were alone? That's ridiculous!"

"I don't know..." She leaned away from him and wiped her eyes. "When you put it that way, it sounds silly. But... I just feel like now that Grandma's gone, there's this huge weight that's been put on my shoulders. I'm the only Rockbell anywhere now... A name is such a heavy thing to carry when you're the only one who's got to hold it up, y'know?"

Al smiled and rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. "Don't be so worried, Winry. I'm sure you'll do just fine."

She sighed. "I wish I could have articulated myself this easily earlier." Being anywhere _near_ Edward, let alone _against_ him, left Winry tongue-tied.

"Earlier? What happened earlier?"

"Nothing relevant to this," she said quickly. After an awkward silence during which Al looked at her speculatively, Winry said, "I'm sorry for waking you up." What this meant was, _I'm done with you now but I won't tell you to simply go away because that would be rude and I respect you way too much._

"You must be tired," said Al. This meant, _I'm tired and I don't mind you dismissing me so good night._

"Good night," Winry whispered into the darkness as he walked out.


	24. A Memory Of The Future

It was dark.

Dark, dark, dark, everywhere she looked, dark.

Were her eyes closed?

Nope.

Where was she?

_Meeeetaaa...._

"Who are you? Where are you?"

_Oh, don't you know me?_

"Brother? Where are you?"

Something warm and soft brushed her arm. Meta tried to grab it, but it was gone.

"Brother? Is that you?"

The world flashed blinding white for a moment, and she caught a glimpse of a fancy restaurant with no one in it.

Then, dark.

Something touched her again. She got the sensation of a set of fingers.

_Try again..._

"Brother...?"

_Try again... Why aren't you trying? _

"I can't see!"

_Me neither... _

"Where is it?" someone asked. An adult female.

"Who are you?" Meta headed towards the voice.

"Where is it?" she repeated. "Where is it?"

"Where is what?"

The lights flashed on again and illuminated a beautiful young woman of about twenty-three. She was dressed up as if she was going to eat at the restaurant. She looked at Meta. "Where is it?"

"What?"

"My ring, my engagement ring! It's gone and I don't know where it is! How will I marry him if I don't have a ring?"

"I'm sorry. I don't know where it is."

The girl narrowed her eyes."Yes, you do. Where is it? Where are you hiding it?"

"I'm not, I swear!"

"You took it from me. You took my ring from me! Give it back!"

"I don't have it!"

"GIVE IT BACK!"

Meta suddenly realized something cool, metal, and small was in her hand. She opened her palm and...

Something glittered at her and...

The world went dark again. The girl's voice echoed and faded: "Give it back..."

_She's beautiful, isn't she?_

"Who was she, Brother?

_Her name is Shannon Daria Martin. Why did you take my ring?_

"I didn't mean to! Wait, _your_ ring?"

_Her ring. But I gave it to her. Would you like to meet someone else? _A blossom of wind tickled her face briefly.

"Brother, where are you?"

The lights flashed on and off once. She was no longer in the restaurant. Now she was in a playground with no children in it.

"Brother...?"

A child's hand brushed hers, subtly sticky. She couldn't grab them in time.

"Where are you? Where are you? Brother, where are you?"

The hand touched her forearm again. Prepared for it, Meta seized it by the wrist, and the world flashed sunny again. But this wasn't Brother, this was... a pigtailed little girl....

...with blond hair like him...

...and blue eyes like him...

...and a cowlick in just the same place as him...

"Who are you?" Meta breathed.

"My name is Lynnie," she said. "Lynnie Erlich."

"That's not your name. It can't be. My dad was an only child and my mom's family aren't called Erlich."

"What makes you so sure that isn't my name?" Lynnie asked.

"Because there's no one you could have gotten it from."

"Oh, but... haven't you figured it out yet... _Auntie_?"

Back to darkness.

"Lynnie?" Meta reached out for the place where she thought Lynnie was, but her hands slipped through air. "Lynnie, where did you go?"

_Lynnie... where are you? I can't see..._

"Brother? Brother, who was that?"

_She isn't anyone anymore. She'll never be anyone._

"No! No, don't say that!"

_It's the truth..._

The lights flashed on and Meta was nowhere. In a split second, she saw her brother's silhouette as if behind a paper screen.

"Brother!" Meta started running.

His head turned as if he was looking through the screen at her.

_You're too late..._

Eli faded.

"Where are you? Where are you? Brother! WHERE ARE YOU? NO! NO! NOOO! NO... no... come back... come back..."

Meta woke up sobbing, then quickly quieted and scrubbed her tears away. If anyone... even Luna... knew that she was having dreams like this, they would say she was crazy like Daddy.

She sat up and stared around at her room. So quiet. Just like _that night..._

It had been so quiet. She had barely dared to breathe for fear that she might not hear his own shallow breathing. His hand was so hot, it burned to the touch—even given Meta's own feverish temperature—and his skin was slick all over. Luna had begged her to take a break, but she refused to leave Eli's side.

There was no dramatic heralding moment. His hand had simply gone slack and his breathing had deepened... or at least that's what she thought had happened when it ceased suddenly... Then, after a moment of dreadful silence, she had come to the realization that the world had indeed ended.

"Brother..." she whispered into the still darkness of her room. "I don't understand... how could you leave me?"

She sat up and pushed the blankets aside. The floor under her feet was cold and woke her up more... if only she knew where she was going...

Well, she _sorta_ did.

"I'm not a little kid. I don't need to be protected from the grown-up things in this world," she reasoned to herself. In fact, the grown-up things had practically landed at her feet. A grown-up's pain merited a grown-up's remedy. And how did grown-ups deal with pain? Well, the answer was obvious.

And it smelled terrible.

_Should you really be doing this? _asked an uncalled-for voice of reason in her head as she looked at the clear glass bottle partially filled with amber liquid. _What if anyone finds out? They really will think you're crazy._

_Well, maybe I am a little crazy,_ she thought defiantly when she realized the voice in her head sounded like Eli. _I want this. I'm going to do it. And nobody can stop me!_

Before she could second-guess herself (so to speak, since she had technically already done it) she got a good grip on the heavy glass bottle so she wouldn't drop it, then tipped it back like she had seen them do in the movies.

It was AWFUL!

Meta quickly capped the bottle and shoved it back into the cabinet, then ran to the sink, gagging, and spat the fiery, bittersweet taste of... god, what was that stuff even? She hadn't bothered to look at the label, since she couldn't read in the dark and she couldn't turn the lights on for fear of getting caught.

But ew, ew, _ew!_ Whatever it was, it was the most revolting thing Meta had ever tasted in her life! She fumbled in the cabinets, grabbed a glass, and filled it with water as quickly as she could, trying to rinse the taste out. It worked, sort of, and after a few glasses of water she began to think that maybe that taste wouldn't stay on her tongue forever.

_Told you so,_ the voice that sounded like Eli said.

"Shut up," she said aloud.

That was when the tears finally came.

* * *

"Hmm, Al, you're up early," Luna noted. "Everything okay?"

_I was up all night worrying about Winry._ "Eh. I'm an early riser. But then, I could ask you the same thing."

"I always wake up this early to make breakfast."

"We got back at eleven and you didn't even go straight to bed. I don't see how you sleep, Luna."

_I don't sleep. _"I take naps sometimes." _Just don't ask me to define sometimes._

Al glanced at Ed, who was asleep in one of the kitchen chairs with a thick book (_Probably something about alchemy,_ Al thought) threatening to fall through his slack fingers. "How long has he been there?"

"He slept there last night."

"He's going to have a sore neck." Al went to the cabinet and took out a stack of plates to set the table. "Did you know Winry slept in his bed last night?"

"Yes, I did actually. That's why he was down here in the first place, I think."

"Any idea how that came about? Winry couldn't... or wouldn't... tell me."

"All Edward said was that it wasn't his fault. Actually he said it in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS."

Al laughed. "I see. So basically you don't really know why Winry was in his bed?"

"Edward didn't elaborate and I didn't prod."

"If it were me I wouldn't have prodded either. I've been expecting this to happen for some time now, so I'm fully capable of allowing them to go at their own pace. From what I can tell it's pretty chaste—I've only seen them kiss once. Though things did get a little uncomfortable in the quarantine... oh, I haven't told you this story either, have I?"

"Your list of stories to tell is quickly piling up, Al," said Luna, referring to the fact that he had already promised to tell her the story about what had really happened to him and Ed four years ago.

"That's okay," said Al, "we've got time, right?" Time was a luxury he had lived without since he had been stuck in the armor. Now, despite the close calls to death he'd so recently experienced, time seemed to wax endless.

"Yes," said Luna, to whom time also had a special implication—perhaps not as sinisterly underscored as Al—but the fact that she'd been able to confess last night what had been weighing so heavily on her mind ever since Al had been gone played a major part in it. "Yes, that we do."

Al sat down in a chair not occupied by the still-sleeping Ed. "The thing that most grated on everyone's nerves when we were in the quarantine facility was that we were all stuck in the same room. Six people crammed in this tiny, I don't know, 15x10 space (and I'm rounding up)."

"That _does_ sound really cramped."

"To make matters worse, three of them were total strangers. There were only four beds, one shower/toilet space that wasn't even really separated except by a tiny little curtain thing, and we were quarantined in there for _nine_ days."

"Sounds more like a concentration camp than a quarantine."

"The way they treated us, you'd have thought it was one."

"Nurse Incompetent, tell her that bit," Ed mumbled sleepily from his chair.

"What a unique surname," said Luna with a hint of a smile.

"Brother likes giving people he doesn't particularly care for mean nicknames."

"Shitty colonel," Ed slurred without bothering to open his eyes.

"Case in point," said Al.

"So who was Nurse Incompetent?" Luna asked.

"Her real name was Maguire. We all pretty much hated her. She was the only person we saw for those nine days and you could tell it didn't matter to her in the slightest whether we lived or died. Anything we needed her to do—"

"Medication," Ed muttered.

"—Brother had to intimidate her to get it."

"Scary white irises were convenient," said Ed.

"Are you sleeping or helping him tell the story?" Luna asked. Ed still hadn't opened his eyes or made any move to become lively. "Decide."

"Both," he responded, causing Luna to sigh loudly.

"ANYway," Al interrupted. "Of all of us in the room, Winry's fever came with the worst rash. It was all over, inflamed, and you couldn't even hardly touch her or the skin would break. So of course, we couldn't put blankets on her... or clothes."

"Hardly," Luna agreed. "That would be idiotic, like bandaging a burn. The gauze would stick and make it worse."

"Right," said Al. "It was quite all right for _Winry_, she was barely conscious most of the time."

"Crying on me the other times," said Ed.

"But we were the ones who had to take care of her. It is VERY awkward to be in a room for two days straight while a girl you've known since, literally, before you were born, lies shirtless two feet away."

"Awkward for _you?_" Ed chuckled. "By her insistence she was sleeping on my lap the whole time. Awkward for _you?_ Winry was running a fever! She. Was. VERY. WARM. Awkward for _you? _All that time you were having a grand old time chilling out and doing nothing, I had to deal with a raging—"

"THAT'S quite enough!" Luna cut him off suddenly. "I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing that _tidbit_ of information!"

"Then my work here is done," he teased, letting his eyes sink closed again.

"Brother, you are so offensive," said Al, slightly amused.

Luna chucked a tiny bit of hot scrambled egg in his direction, but he deflected it with his fighter's reflexes and flicked it towards the trash can. "Showoff," Luna said under her breath as she was setting the food out on the table.

"Why is that cabinet in the other room open?" Al asked suddenly, looking past Luna into the open living room.

"Pinako's liquor cabinet is open?" Luna asked, glancing back to visually verify it. "How odd. Al, why don't you go and shut it?"

He was already going. "Wonder how it got open in the first place. I didn't even know that was a liquor cabinet. I assumed it contained automail tools just like everything around here. " When he got to the cabinet he made to shut it, then hesitated. "Someone's been in here," he called back into the kitchen with an odd note in his voice.

"Are you sure?" Luna asked.

"Absolutely. Liquor bottles don't get jammed in backwards and lopsided on their own. Pinako had every other bottle in perfect order. This one stands out."

"Who would be messing in the liquor cabinet?" Luna asked, befuddled, as she wiped her hands on her thighs (sheathed in hot pink leggings this morning) and headed over to see for herself. "Well, someone has definitely been here." She raised her voice a little to be heard from the living room: "Edward, you haven't been _drinking_, have you?"

"If I was, you think I'd make it so goddamn obvious?"

"Good point."

"It's not Brother," said Al. "I can't imagine who it could be, actually. Nobody's personality is right for it, y'know?"

"It's a mystery," said Luna with an air of giving up on the solution. "Blame a ninja and be done with it. So do you want breakfast this morning, or no?"

"Hmm," said Al, staring at the racks of bottles with a pensive expression on his face. "Yeah, I guess I could go for some eggs right about now. Though I _highly_ doubt it was her, we can still ask Winry about it later. She's the only other big kid that could have done it. I mean, just because it's been messed with, doesn't necessarily imply that they drank anything, ri—?"

"Food first, mystery later," Ed said across him.


	25. Graveyards and Rain

**This chapter is, for all intents and purposes, late. I'm sorry! ^^' I'm having a crappy Monday, okay, don't hate me! I'll try not to make next chapter as late as this one was, but no promises. Also, I'm sorry if there are any typos. Point them out to me if you find them so I can fix it; I didn't have time to really proofread.**

* * *

"Are you sure you want to do this? We don't have to go right now. We could come here later, when things have... cooled down a little."

Winry shook her head stubbornly. "No, no, no. I'm going to do this now. Now is as good a time as any. So stop asking me to second-guess myself, Ed."

"Pinako had wanted to be near her son," Luna said softly, interrupting Ed's fretting. (There was really no other word for it. It wasn't entirely his fault, of course—Ed had never been able to cope well with an emotional Winry, and the fact that tears had been silently tracking down her cheeks for the duration of their somber walk to the graveyard didn't help matters.)

Luna stopped at one of the rows of headstones and looked down the line so Winry would know which way to go, but she went no further than that. This wasn't her family, and she felt intrusive even coming as far as she had.

Winry understood Luna's hesitation and went ahead down the row. Ed clapped Luna on the shoulder and muttered his gratitude, then followed Winry and held her hand as she stopped in front of the freshest one in the row.

Winry knelt, letting his fingers slip through hers, and reached out to trace the letters with her fingertips, ever so lightly as if stroking a flower petal. She sighed wistfully. "It was coming eventually, right...?" she mumbled almost to herself. "She wasn't young."

Ed didn't kneel next to the headstone like she did, merely jammed his hands in his pockets and looked around, a casual stance to mask a serious moment. "You shouldn't justify it to yourself like that. No one deserves to die just because they're not young."

Winry was quiet, ignoring him, because as long as she told herself this had been inevitable, it didn't hurt as much. "It feels like losing my mom and dad all over again, you know?" She glanced to her left, where grass grew over two more Rockbells.

"Not a fun feeling," Ed agreed. His eyes traveled to another pair of gravestones in the near distance: Hohenheim and Trisha. Grass had already grown over the former. _How long ago was it that he kicked the bucket, anyway? Feels like yesterday._ "How long... did you plan on staying here?"

Winry didn't respond right away.

"Is that an 'I don't know'?"

Still nothing.

Ed sat down cross-legged on the grass in the three feet or so of space between Pinako's and someone else's grave. "If you're ignoring me, then I guess I'll just make myself comfortable and you can let me know when I'm no longer invisible." He glanced back at the end of the row. Knowing that she was superfluous, Luna had already gone.

Finally Winry found her voice, trembling in a floating octave that stuck higher than Edward could ever have dreamt of reaching in falsetto:

"I don't understand... if she's really in a better place... _why does it have to hurt so much?_"

* * *

_There is no pain that poetry cannot comprehend._ This was something that Luna knew to be fact, true as the staring fields of her tiny hometown, alone but never lonely.

_However, there is such thing as pain that I cannot comprehend,_ she admitted to herself. This was also something Luna knew to be fact, true as the gold of Alphonse's eyes when she caught him at exactly the wrong moment, just as sadness beyond his years would dull that vibrant hue.

Luna's eyes were silver-gray, ice-blue in the sun, and despite the piercing shade of her irises Luna knew she was not and never would be able to look into someone's eyes and watch them suffocate on her pain. It was simply beyond her. _And hopefully always will be._

After experiencing that exact sensation of breathless death when hearing Edward mutter that lifeless thank-you in the graveyard, Luna had taken her leave, to no one's notice.

She wasn't going back to her mother's house, and she wasn't going to the Moon, but when Luna visualized the place where she was going, her first thought was, _home._ Luna's home was not the place where her relatives were. It was the place where her family was.

Even if that family was broken and nigh unfixable, even if that family was little more than a bunch of hapless teenagers doing their best to care for a couple of little children who had lost everything, even if that family was so tied up in the thread of insanity and unhealthy romance of the hidden and unhidden varieties, even if that family was hanging on by the threads that tore them apart, it was still her family. Sometimes she felt as if she didn't belong. Sometimes she felt as if a day would never come when she would be unneeded. Sometimes she felt helpless. Sometimes she felt alone. Always she felt fatigued.

_Maybe I'll just sit down by the road and nap a little like I always did._

_No, wait, this road is too busy. I'll hop the fence and sleep in this field... no one will mind._

_Oh, this field is on someone's property. Well, no matter, I'll just cut through it and sleep in the uncleared land behind ther-_

_..._

* * *

Hours passed like tired but persistent horses, foaming and sweating and dragging on.

Ed had lain down and was staring at the sky unseeingly. At some point he seemed to notice the clouds. "It's going to rain," he warned.

"Good. This humidity is killing me," said Winry without interest.

"We'll get wet."

"Likely."

"Wanna go home?"

She sighed tiredly, then forced her legs to move and pull her body into a standing position. "I guess home is no worse than here."

"Hm," Ed grunted noncommittally, and they lapsed into a reflective silence as they retreated from sight of the graveyard.

"... Ed?" Winry said hesitantly after a minute.

"What?"

"I just wanted to say..." She trailed off and looked away.

"What? What did you want to say?" he asked, his interest piqued.

"Just that... well, what happened yesterday..."

There was only one thing she could mean, but Ed had no idea what she meant. "What about it?"

"It shouldn't have happened and... I'm sorry."

Ed gave her a blank look. "What for?"

"I was being stupid. It's my fault what happened. And I'm sorry."

"... I don't understand," he said finally.

"I was just using you. It was wrong. I shouldn't have done it."

"You think I'm mad at you... because you _kissed_ me?"

"It was a lot more than kissing," she mumbled, defensive at his tone.

"Okay, look." Ed stopped and grabbed her elbow to pull them both to a stop. Winry was looking down at her feet. "Look at me."

"Why can't you just accept my apology and move on?" she said sourly, refusing to look up.

"Look at me. Please." He grabbed her chin and tilted her head up to meet his eyes. "If you had done anything that I didn't want one hundred percent, I would have stopped you. So don't beat yourself up about nonissues, okay?"

"But you kept saying 'no' and 'stop' and I..." Winry bit her lip. "I forced you to." She looked down again.

"No, you didn't!" Ed said, laughing a little and kissing her hair. "You'd be hard pressed to find a man anywhere who would say no to a girl like you."

"You're trying to make me feel better," she accused.

"Well, of course I am. That doesn't necessarily mean I'm lying, now, does it?"

"Let's get going, I feel rain drops on my face." Winry turned away so they could start walking again. "You're just a suck up, that's all I'm saying," she continued.

"Eh, well, you're easy to please," Edward said nonchalantly.

* * *

When Ed and Winry got home it was raining pretty hard and their hair was plastered to their faces so that they looked like a pair of drowned rats... blond ones.

"I was worried you three would never make it home," Al joked. "It's almost eight o'clock, so dinner's already cold, but you're big kids so you'll deal. Better go get changed though."

"Us _three_?" Winry repeated.

"Sheesh, little bro, learn to count," Ed joked as he went to the sink, unbraided his hair, and literally started wringing it out. "Luna came home hours ago."

Winry went over and slapped his hands away from his hair. "You can't do _that_, stupid, it's terrible for your hair. You'll break the strands." She made a 'wait right here and don't move!' gesture, then left to go get a towel.

"What?" Al asked. "... You mean she isn't with you?"

"You mean she's not here?" Ed stopped messing with his hair and looked at Al with wide eyes.

"No..." said Al slowly. "Look, don't be alarmed yet. She might have just gone somewhere else and got caught in the rain."

"Where else would she have gone?" Winry asked as she came back into the kitchen with a towel in hand.

"I'm not sure, but I know where to look." Al grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door and threw a jacket over his shoulders for good measure. "Guys, this might take a while. If I don't come back in... oh, let's say... three hours, then _and only then_ should you start to worry. Okay?"

"Sure," said Ed, who was distracted by trying to swat Winry away as she fussed over his hair. "Three hours, got it."

Al left in a rush.

"Oh, come on, let me dry it. It's going to get all frizzy if you don't do something," Winry warned.

"My hair doesn't need this much fuss, leave me alone," Ed protested.

"Don't be so thick-skulled," said Winry as she finally got her towel close enough to his head to dry his hair.

"Hey, hey, hey!" He reached back and grabbed her wrists to stop her, then hesitated. "... That feels weird."

Winry grinned. "Does it really?" She had figured this out long ago, in elementary school, when the girls would braid and play with each others' hair: Having someone play with your hair is a very comforting and intimate thing.

"It feels... nice," said Ed slowly, struggling to articulate.

"My hairbrush is upstairs in my room, I think," she said to herself. "Should I go and get it?"

"No..." Ed mumbled. "Let's just both go up there, mm?"

Winry laughed. "You're really liking that, aren't you?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, turning a little bit pink. "No one's ever done that to me before," he said simply.

"Hmm, I wonder how long Al will really be gone," Winry mumbled with vague concern as they headed upstairs.


	26. Missing

"Hmm..." Edward sighed, "you're going to make me fall asleep."

"Well, do it then. What's holding you back? No one minds."

"I can't yet. We're still waiting for Al and Luna to come back, remember?"

"Oh, that's right," Winry said with a note of subdued surprise. "How could I have forgotten?"

"Wonder how long it's been since he left..."

"Dunno. I lost track of time."

Ed forced his limbs to move despite his sleepiness. "I'll go downstairs and check the clock."

"I'll come with you. I don't want to be the only person up on the second floor." Another consequence of losing Pinako and Eli was the looming emptiness of the house, despite the fact that technically, six people were living in it. The days were quieter now, and the nights doubly so.

"Don't step on the creaky stair. You'll wake up the girls."

"I know I sometimes do stupid things, but believe it or not, I do know better than to step on the damned creaky stair."

"Oh, don't be sarcastic," said Winry. "I wasn't trying to get on your sour side."

When they got downstairs, Ed went into the living room to look at the grandfather clock and Winry pulled back the blinds in the kitchen to peer out the window.

"It's 11:45," Ed stated. "Didn't Al say he'd be back by 11?"

"I think I see them..." she said, squinting intently at the darkness outside. "Him," she corrected.

"She's not with him?" Ed looked out over her shoulder.

Together they watched Al come up the road, across the yard, and inside. He shook out the umbrella and stowed it in the stand, then slowly removed his jacket with shaking fingers.

"Al, is everything okay?" Winry asked.

"Where is Luna?" Ed asked.

"I don't know," he sighed, answering both. "I looked everywhere I could think of."

"Maybe she left," Ed suggested. "Went back to her parents' house or something. She's really weird, who knows where she might've gone?"

"Went back to her parents' house?" Al repeated weakly. He reached into his shirt and withdrew the cinnamon-scented talisman he wore close to his heart. "D'you reckon she would have left this?"

With that, he left the room and rambled up the stairs slowly as if in a daze.

"What do we do?" Winry asked once he was out of sight.

"I think, if it weren't for the fact that he'd told us he was coming back, Al would've been out all night searching."

"He looked really tired..." Winry noted. "And sad."

"Yeah... Okay, well I'm out," Ed announced, grabbing his own red cloak from the hooks by the door.

Winry grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?"

He gave her a duh-stare. "To the _post office. _Where do you think?"

"I don't think you should go out searching for her in this rain. I only didn't stop Al from going because he had some idea of where to look."

"What do you suggest?" he asked, still sarcastic.

"We wait until she comes back. That's what—" She cut off suddenly and looked away.

"What?" Ed looked around as if expecting the bogey monster to jump out from a dark corner. "What were you about to say?"

_That's what Granny would have done._ "Just that... that's... that's what's the best plan."

"Oh really," said Ed. "Grammatical awkwardness isn't your style. Hiding something?" Winry neither confirmed nor denied that something was up, so Edward gave up. "Fine, we'll do it your way."

* * *

"Winry," Ed whispered loudly. "You're falling asleep again."

"Huuuuh...? ...Crap!" she exclaimed, sitting up quickly and rubbing her eyes. "I can't believe myself!"

"Why don't you just turn in? It's so late it's early. I don't think anything's gonna happen tonight."

She didn't respond.

"Winry?"

Nothing.

"Winry." He got up and looked at her face.

She had already fallen asleep again.

"Oh, Winry," he sighed. "You try too hard. Even Al went to sleep. And yet you insisted on waiting up." He hoisted her up over his shoulder, ignoring her protests when she fell out of her light, fretful sleep and realized what was going on. "Really, Win, you brought this on yourself."

"Put me down!"

"No."

"Ed, this is completely uncalled for."

"Eh, well, I called for it. So there."

"Damn it, Edward Elric!" She tried and failed to hit him, being suspended at exactly the incorrect angle for the task. "Let me go!"

"Why don't you go back to sleep?" he suggested.

"Not a chance in hell," she snarled.

"Fine, then would you at least do the world a favor and suffer in silence?"

She pouted. "You can be such a jackass sometimes."

"I'm lovable," he said nonchalantly as he pushed her door open with his foot. "You'll have forgiven me by morning."

"How do you figure?" she asked, still grouchy.

"I know you too well," he said simply.

"In other words, you think I'm predictable."

"Far from it. But don't ask leading questions like that. I'm too tired to have a fight." He stopped and stood in front of her bed.

"Are you gonna put me down now or what? The blood's rushing to my head."

"Well, are you going to run off as soon as I do?"

"You won't find that out until you let me go," she responded ambiguously.

"Then I guess I'll have to take my chances," he said finally, putting her gently down on the mattress. When he moved to leave, Winry caught his arm and held him back.

"Where are you going?"

"My own room," he said in a 'duh' tone.

"What's so great about there?"

"... That's... where I sleep..." He had no idea where she was going with this.

"Well, why don't you sleep here?" When all he did was stare at her blankly, she elaborated: "With me."

"Sleep... with... you?" he repeated. The words did not seem to make sense in that order. "Why?"

_Because if you're here, maybe it's you I'll dream about instead of Granny._ "Does absolutely everything have to have a reason with you?"

"Not everything, but this certainly does. What if someone else found out?"

"Have it your way then," she said suddenly, rolling over and closing her eyes. "Just get out."

"I... well... okay? I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings..."

"I said get out!"

* * *

Night descended painfully for Meta, as it always did. She had no idea what was going on outside this room, of course, but she suspected something was wrong when Luna didn't come to ask for a story. The sudden, jarring change in routine made it worse.

She waited for hours, but no one ever came.

Perhaps it was stupid, but eventually she decided that maybe she would be able to sleep through the night without telling a story... Eli had died almost three weeks ago now. It wasn't like he had passed yesterday. Maybe it would work out okay...

Wrong.

After dreaming vividly of blood and fire, Meta jumped out of bed and tripped her way across the room, staring at the bed as if it was filled with snakes (a second ago, it had been).

After her heartbeat calmed down some, she wiped the tears away and a thought occurred to her: Could the alcohol have been as bad as she remembered it?

_Yes, it was,_ said Eli. _Don't do it again._

"Stop talking to me!" she whisper-screamed, running out of her room and through the kitchen toward the living room. "You're..."

_What are you doing?_

She opened the cabinet. "Not..."

_You idiot!_

She grabbed one of the bottles; she didn't know which one it was. "Here..."

_Stop!_

She couldn't unscrew the cap fast enough. "ANY-..."

_No!_

"-MORE!"

_META!_

She drank as much of the horrible liquid as she could swallow. To her great surprise, Eli's screams stopped suddenly, and she was alone.

* * *

That night, for the second night in a row, Winry woke up screaming. And for the second night in a row, she found that she had woken a concerned Elric. However, unlike that first night, the Elric brother who had come to her side was the elder one.

"Are you alright?" he asked when he realized that she was awake.

"Mm-hmm..." she said sleepily, rubbing the tears out of her eyes.

"Okay... well... good." He stood up.

And here she'd been expecting him to linger; what was she thinking?

"Well, um... good night," Ed said awkwardly.

"Wait."

He froze immediately, as if he had been expecting her to stop him. "What?"

"Please, don't go."

Ed sighed.

"Don't leave me again."

He flinched.

Winry bit her lip and mentally begged him to agree. Finally, he gave in and slid under the blanket next to her.

"But only just this once," he qualified as she made herself comfortable against him.

No response.

She was already asleep.

* * *

**Is the fact that these chapters lately are all angsty starting to grate on your nerves? They are on mine. Admittedly, I've been fluffing them up, but the truth is that right now, every one of my characters is under a LOT of stress, and everything is starting to fall apart in earnest. Are you getting nervous about what's happening with Luna?**


	27. Returned

The girl beside him hated him right now. She walked in silence with her barely-visible-beyond-the-mask jaw set angrily. It was odd, really, the way she differentiated so thoroughly between himself and his other. When he was himself, she hated him completely. When he was the other, not really in control, she loved him and was absolutely devoted. In fact, she distrusted him so much that every evening she insisted he relinquish control so that she could sleep peacefully. If he didn't do so, she wouldn't sleep. But she was useful, and it made no real difference to him, so he let it be.

"Someone's there," she said suddenly.

He snorted. "Who would be out in the woods in this weather?"

"Someone's there," she repeated, absolutely positive.

"Where?"

She pointed.

"Fine, I'll check it out." He altered course and headed towards a thick pile of brush. It hadn't grown that way; the storm last night had obviously blown it into that pattern. Someone was really here? "Hey!" As he came closer, he saw the shape of the person. It was female, and young, perhaps his age or slightly younger. "Hey, girl!" She didn't respond.

She was sprawled awkwardly on the forest floor. Her platinum blonde hair was dirty and tangled with debris and blood. There were minute cuts from thorns and branches where her skin was visible. She was lying in the mud, and the pattern of footprints behind her indicated stumbling before finally collapsing in the position she was now. Most importantly, part of a tree had fallen literally on top of her—which explained the blood in her hair. If it had hit her on the head... well, it looked heavy enough to be injurious.

"Lightning strike," announced his masked companion. She had gone to the other side of the fallen girl and was looking at the large bough where it had been severed.

"It's her own fault, playing in the woods during a summer storm."

"Humans can be idiots."

"But you're a human."

"And if I had been unlucky enough to get hit by a tree struck by lightning, it would have been my fault. I know how action and consequence works."

He poked the fallen girl with his toe. "Is she dead?"

"No, of course not. Otherwise I wouldn't have sensed her ki."

"So, alive." He knelt and shook her a little. "Hey, girl. Wake up."

She made a semiconscious moan and didn't move.

"GIRL!"

She jerked in alarm, then her hand came up to touch her bleeding head, in the process breaking a few sticks off from the large bough that was literally on top of her. Once she noticed him, she gave him a lifeless but somehow curious look. "Wha'r you doin'?"

"Making sure you're not dead." Of course, he'd already known she wasn't dead, but it was the kind of thing she would have expected to hear. "What happened to you, girl?

"Was takin' a li'l res'..." she slurred.

"Must have been one hell of a nap."

"Fell asleep, then... dunno," she went on. "Rem'mb'ring hurts.... I'll just go back t' sleep f'r a minute..."

"No!" his comrade said quickly.

"Huh?" she asked, taken aback by the tone and bewildered by the sound of a voice she couldn't see.

"What?" he asked his comrade.

"She might have a concussion; she's obviously bleeding. She needs to be taken to a doctor."

"Right, bleeding too much is dangerous for humans," he said to himself. Then he looked down at the girl again. "Where are your family? I'll take you home."

"Al..." she mumbled, teetering on the precipice of consciousness.

"Who's Al?" He knew an Al who lived near here, but it probably wasn't the same one. "C'mon, you stupid human, stay awake!"

"Al-... -phonse... El-... -ric..."

"Alphonse Elric? Great, he's an old friend." He picked her up like she weighed nothing at all, threw her over his shoulder, and stood up. His companion assisted by lifting the large branch so he could grab her up in one movement. "So what's your name?" he asked, hoping that questioning the girl would help her stay awake longer.

"Luna Helen-... -en-... -ena Sis-... sis-... -ley... Turn-..."

"Sheesh, what a mouthful!" he interrupted. "Don't give yourself a brain hemorrhage just trying to recite your own name."

"Luna Helena Sisisley...?" his companion recited with more patience than he.

"No..." said Luna.

"Sisley," she responded, realizing her mistake. "And your last name, Turn-what? Turnbaugh, Turnip, Turner?"

"Uh-huh..." Luna mumbled tiredly. "Turner."

"Alrighty then, Luna Helena Sisley Turner," he said as his subordinate lost interest again. "I'll take you to the Elrics."

"Wha'z your name?"

"Hmm, good question," he said seriously. It changed quite often. "Well, you can call me Greed."

* * *

The next morning, Al was up first, looking the worse for wear. Edward came down not long after him and found that Al was already dressed and preparing to leave.

"You're going out again?" asked Ed. "It's still raining."

"If it weren't for the darkness last night I would have searched for as long as it took," Al said seriously. "Hang the rain."

"Fine," Ed said when he saw that Al would not be moved. "Then how do you feel about an expansion of your search party?"

"You're coming with?"

"Well, don't sound so surprised! I'm your brother, aren't I?"

Al shook his head quickly. "It's not that I don't think you'd help me, Brother! It's just that I didn't think you'd help _Luna._"

"If it was only her that this issue affected, I probably wouldn't. However, that's not the case, and—"

He was interrupted by someone knocking quite demandingly on the front door.

Ed and Al locked eyes for a tense moment, then Al, who was closer, rushed over and threw open the door.

It was Lin-... no, Greed, with Ran Fan hanging back a few feet behind. And slung over his shoulder was...

"Luna!" Al shouted.

"Yep." Greed walked in, displaying his knowledge of the layout of the Rockbell home by going to the living room and dumping Luna on the couch therein. "I believe this is yours."

Ran Fan glided silently in behind him, and Al shut the door and rushed over.

"What happened to her?" Al asked. He saw that someone had field-bandaged a nasty injury on her head that was still bleeding, and that there were many smaller, unbandaged cuts all over her arms and legs.

Greed just shrugged. "Dunno."

"You _don't know_?" Ed repeated skeptically.

"She was in the woods, just sort of collapsed," he responded. "A tree had apparently fallen on her." ("A TREE?" Al repeated incredulously.) "She told me to take her here, and since that's where I was headed anyway, I obliged." He shrugged, then migrated to the kitchen. "What kinda food do y'all got here?"

"Great, there goes every scrap of food in this hole," Ed groaned. "Looks like we'll have to go shopping." He sighed and followed Greed into the kitchen, while Al got up and left in a different direction, towards the patient room with all the medical supplies. "So, you were headed here anyway? What for?"

"Heard there was some kinda fever going around. Had to make sure you made it, didn't I?"

"Yeah, sure," said Ed disinterestedly. "Gotta make sure your one-time allies haven't kicked the bucket, right?"

"Exactly," said Greed. "Finally, someone who gets my logic."

"But... I thought all you homunculi died when Father did?" asked Winry, who was standing in the entryway of the kitchen (the one that led to the stairs, not the one that led to the living room, the outside, the shop, or the extension Ed and Al had added). She had only just rolled out of bed.

"Winry makes a good point. How is it that you aren't dead?"

"What made ya think that I was dead?" Greed had already discovered last night's leftovers and was stuffing his face.

"Because they were also a part of Father. They all died 'round the same time he did, well, except for the ones like Envy and Gluttony who had died beforehand," said Ed. "We figured you were gone too."

"What, did you think I would just drop dead?" Greed laughed. "I'm sorry, but you won't be able to get rid of me that easily!"

"Explain, then."

"Hmm, I have no idea. Father and I weren't exactly what you would call close. He didn't explain shit to me."

Ed sighed loudly. "So you walk into my house—"

"—My house," Winry interrupted.

"—her house," Ed corrected, rolling his eyes at her for nit-picking the semantics. "You dump Luna in the other room with no logical explanation for why she's bleeding profusely except that a fucking tree fell on her—because THAT'S believable—then you tell me you're here to make sure I'm not dead—as if you ever gave a rat's ass before—and then you start eating all the food in the damn house?"

"Sounds 'bout right," said Greed with his mouth full.

At a loss for words, Ed just growled in frustration.

"Oh, what a day it is, when the great Edward Elric has nothing to say!" Winry exclaimed as she want to the icebox, grabbed a carton of eggs, and prepared to scramble herself some. "It's quite worrying, actually—what next? A swarm of locusts, frogs raining from the sky?"

"Oh, why don't you shut your big mouth," Ed shot back. "Yeesh! How can you talk so big? Or have you already forgotten last ni—"

"Shut your face!" Winry shouted, turning red.

"When you practically _begged_ for me to st—"

A frying pan (not the one Winry was cooking in, obviously) soared through the air and all but knocked Ed off his feet. "I said SHUT UP!" She turned back to the food and continued cooking as if nothing had happened. "So how's it going, Ran Fan?" No one had yet acknowledged the masked girl who hovered indistinctly in the corner, out of everyone's way.

"It's going," Ran Fan said simply.

"So why are you hanging out with Greed? I know he _looks_ like Ling, but—"

"We have an arrangement," said Greed. "Don't concern yourself about it."

"Huh," said Ed doubtfully, raising an eyebrow at Greed while rubbing the new bump on his head. "Is that so."

"Yep," said Greed, unaffected.

"How interesting." He gave Greed a long look, then went over to Winry and slipped his arms around her waist while standing behind her and resting his chin on her shoulder. "Any of those eggs for me?" he wondered.

"Not if you don't stop the public displays of affection," she said immediately.

"Embarrassed?" He kissed the side of her face.

"No, of course not. What am I, a twelve-year-old? I just would rather not have you so close, distracting me while I'm cooking. It's a recipe for disaster; either the food will get burned or I will. So stop bugging me and _maybe_ you'll get some breakfast."

"If I get some breakfast, _maybe_ I'll stop bugging you."

In lieu of her hand, Winry waved the spatula dismissively. "Yeah, yeah, and which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

"The egg, and it came in the form of my breakfast, lovingly prepared by my—" he stuttered on the word 'girlfriend'— "my, uh... well, you."

She twisted around, still restricted by the circle of his arms, and raised her eyebrows but didn't comment on the slip-up. "Go sit down," she said in an I'm-annoyed-and-I'll-deal-with-you-later tone.

Ed saluted. "Yes, _sir_!" He then marched back to the table and took a seat, completely ignoring the significant look Greed was giving him.

Al appeared in the doorway then, looking sheepish. "Winry, can you help me...?"

"With what, Al? I'm cooking!"

"Well, Luna's hurt in a lot of places I'd rather not touch; it's too invasive..."

"Luna's back!?" Winry exclaimed, whirling around and forgetting about the food for a minute. "Why didn't anyone tell me!?"

"She's back," said Ed dully, as he got up to take care of the food, which was seconds away from burning on the frying pan.

"She's also injured," said Al. "Would you help me, please?"

"Uh... uh..." Winry looked like she had lost her powers of speech temporarily, "well, yeah, of course."

"Good," said Al, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Oh, but one thing first," said Winry. She turned to Ed, who was again right next to her, and leaned close to his ear. No one could see her lips moving beyond all of her hair and she whispered so that only Ed could hear: "C'mon, showing off for the visitors? I thought you were above that."

"Couldn't resist," he muttered back.

"You'll pay for it later."

"Sounds like a date."

She grinned and nipped his earlobe playfully. "Maybe it is."


	28. Azaleas

**This chapter was a pain to write. I just couldn't seem to make it come! I know where this fic is, and I know where it wants to be, but GETTING there is proving to be an uphill struggle! I eventually made myself write by disallowing myself to read any more of _Karin_ until the chapter was done.**

**When I was thinking about what flower to use in this chapter, I decided to use the flower which for me, has always symbolized childhood: the azalea, from whence the name of this chapter comes. If you're not familiar with them (I haven't seen a single azalea bush in this entire state of Maryland, but when I was a little kid in Virginia, you were weird if you didn't have sixteen zillion white, pink, and purple-colored bushes in front of your house), azaleas are very beautiful flowers. They grow in bushes and only bloom for a few weeks a year in the summertime before they all drop off and your bushes look like bushes again. While they bloom, however, azalea flowers are EVERYWHERE. Kinda like sakura flowers are in Japan; you know the graduation scenes in some anime where sakura petals are flying everywhere? It's actually a lot like that. Except azaleas bloom later in the year than that. Azaleas are also an ironic flower because, depending on who you ask, they can mean abundance or temperance. That's why I thought they were a good fit for this chapter's theme, and in fact the whole theme of Meta's struggle. If you don't understand why the mixed message theme fits Meta's struggle, I'm afraid you're hopeless and will have to be humanely euthanized. (Kidding.)  
**

* * *

When Winry had managed to isolate Ed for a few minutes upstairs to give him his punishment for embarrassing her earlier (after taping Luna up and putting her in the patient room to sleep off her injury, of course), she quickly discovered that he wasn't into it.

"Are you okay?" she asked after discovering his total passivity.

Ed took a large breath and exhaled it very slowly. "Fine. Just fine."

"You don't look fine. You look a little pale."

"Do I?" he asked faintly.

"Yeah, Ed, seriously. What's up?" She leaned away from his body and looked him up and down as if expecting to find a neon sign flashing, blinking, and pointing at whatever part of Ed's body was ailing him.

"Ah, uh... nothing..." At her annoyed look, he extended his sentence: "Nothing you need to worry about. Wait, that's not better, is it? Well, it's nothing... nothing... uh... dire. Nope, it's not that." He smiled a bit at his failure to plan out the end of that sentence.

"Well, what is it, then?"

"I don't understand why you insist on losing your head over every minute ailment and discomfort I have," he said in response to her urgent tone. "I said it's nothing, so just forget it, okay?" Ed ducked out of her grip and escaped.

"Where are you going?" she called after him, following him out.

Ed made his way to the WC very quickly and shut the door in her face, then rushed to the sink **(AN: Or would it have been called a basin?)**, leaned over it, dry-heaved, and stood there for a minute in agony, waiting for it to happen again, as the abdominal pain did not cease.

Winry knocked on the door. "Ed? What's going on? I'm worried!"

"Go away," he groaned.

"Are you sick?" she asked, and then another thought occurred to her. "Are you _being_ sick?"

He made sure the door was locked before answering: "The latter."

As he had expected, Winry immediately tried the door. "Damn it," he heard her mutter. "Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?" she asked in a louder voice meant to carry through the wooden door.

He was silent for a moment as the feeling of another lurch came and passed with no effect. "No," he finally answered. "I haven't eaten anything but those eggs and they were perfect." Ew. Thinking about food, even perfect food, made him wish he actually was being sick.

"How bad is it?"

"Feels like my body can't decide whether it wants to chuck up or not." And if she had a problem with the imagery, she should have gone the fuck away when he'd told her to.

"If it doesn't pass before the doctor comes to look at Luna, I'll ask him to look at you too, okay?"

"Don't bother," he said. The immediate feeling of nausea had passed, if not the underlying stomach pain.

"Edward Elric, this is crap! You can't just ignore the warning signs your body gives—"

"No!" he said quickly before she could get any further in her assumptions. "It's over now, okay, so stop fussing." He didn't mind misleading her if it meant she wasn't going to worry about him anymore. They both had more important things to worry about.

* * *

"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey—"

"What do you want, Joli?" Winry asked wearily as the three-year-old bounced up and down excitedly and followed her around the house while Winry was trying to collect everyone's dirty laundry.

"I wanna pway!" Joli squealed. "I wanna pway wif da fwowers!"

"You want to play with the flowers?" Winry repeated, enunciating carefully. "What flowers do you want to play with? There are none here."

"Outside!"

"Joli, I'm doing the chores, see?" Winry held up the pile of clothes she had already collected from hers and Al's rooms.

"I wanna pway...!" she whined.

"Go downstairs and see if A- no, wait, he's probably still hovering over Luna. Okay, then E- no, he doesn't feel good. Well, crap, I'm the only one left, aren't I?"

Joli nodded vigorously.

Winry frowned. "Tell you what, Jo, why don't you go downstairs and see if Meta will play outside with you?"

"Sissy don't play."

"I know Meta doesn't like to leave her room, but she needs to stop sulking and get into the sun for a little while. Tell her to play with you."

"Otay!" Joli ran off.

* * *

"SISSY!" Joli ran in and jumped on top of Meta's bed, then started bouncing.

"What do _you _want?" Meta hissed. "Stupid baby, leave me alone."

"C'mon, we gonna pway outside!"

"No, we're not." Meta grabbed the pillow and covered her head with it. "Go make Luna play with you."

"Silly Sissy! Woona sweepin'!"

"Is she _sweeping _or sleeping?" Meta demanded impatiently. "Sheesh, learn to talk."

"I _am_ talkin', silly!" Joli giggled, crawled up to Meta's head, and started wrestling with the pillow. "Get up, get up, we gonna pway wif da fwowers!"

"What flowers? I don't want to play with any damn flowers!"

"Sissy say a bad word," said Joli. "Sissy a bad girl. Sissy gonna get in twouble."

"Go away, stupid baby, or I'll say a LOT of bad words!"

Winry walked in at that point and went to the corner to grab Meta's dirty laundry, which she no longer bothered to put in the basket. "Meta, go play outside with your sister. The azaleas are in bloom and she wants to play with the flowers."

"She can go ahead and fuckin' do it, then. I ain't comin'."

"Meta Melinda Erlich!" Winry shouted. "Someone ought to wash your mouth out!"

"Oh, shut up, why don't you?" Meta shouted back. "Like I care what you think!"

"Don't talk to me like that! Are you forgetting who took you into their home when you didn't have one? Are you forgetting that me and Ed and Al and Luna are doing everything we can to make sure you're able to lay on your ass all day and sulk in the dark! You can't change the past, Meta! STOP ACTING LIKE YOUR WHOLE LIFE IS OVER JUST BECAUSE HIS IS!"

Joli added her two cents: "Sissy being mean!"

_She's right. Not to mention the alc— _

"SHUT UP!" Meta screamed at all three. "You don't know anything!"

"I know a whole hell of a lot more than you think! But how would you know, since all you ever do is pout in this damn room and refuse to move on!"

_Spot-on again. You think people with normal grief management skills hear the voices of the dead?_

Meta pressed the pillow harder over her ears. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

_Then how am I still here? _

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

Fuming, Winry dropped the laundry in her hands, stomped over to the bed, yanked back the covers and the pillow, lifted Meta to a sitting position by her upper arm and raised a hand—

"Do it," said Meta when Winry hesitated. "Do it, you stupid bitch!"

"Shut. Your. MOUTH!"

"Winry!" said two voices at once. ("Winwy!" said a third.)

The voice that was closest to her was also the one that had grabbed her wrist and stopped her before she could follow through.

Winry and Meta stared at each other with gritted rage. As the former realized what she had almost done, the anger melted away and was replaced with a wide horror that soon collapsed when Winry began shaking and crying. Ed released her wrist and put his arms around her, and Al reached out and rubbed her shoulder too.

Meta glared at all three of them. "Why'd you stop her? You should have let her hit me."

_You know why he stopped her. Normal people don't hit kids, Meta. Dad wasn't normal._

_Shut up, _Meta thought at Eli.

"That wouldn't have been the first time an adult struck you, would it, Meta?" asked Al.

"What do you know about it?" Meta said defensively.

Al sighed. "One time, I was watching you kids playing tag at the park..."

* * *

_The ones being chased were Eli and ten-year-old twins Brian and James Ryder, June's little brothers. _Cheaters,_ Al thought;_ she's the youngest, and she's a _girl _on top of that.

_He changed his mind, however, when he saw Meta catch up to James (the twins were fraternal, and James was the curly-haired one) and not just tag, but tackle him so they both skidded to the ground and earned heavy grass stains. Meta hopped up immediately and hollered, "JAMES IS IT," then took off before James could get up and re-tag her._

_After half an hour of watching them, which felt like only a few minutes, June stuck two fingers in her mouth and pulled off a spectacular whistle. This was the cue for all of the kids for which June and Pinako were responsible to come line up in front of her. "A'right," she addressed the kids. "It's going to be dinnertime soon, so you guys need to wrap it up. I'm going to get Joli and then we'll go." The kids gave her the obligatory chorus of groans, but as soon as she wasn't right in front of them they all laid or sat on the ground in various states of exhaustion._

_Joli wouldn't come, though. She curled up in a tiny space under the stairs for the slide and refused to come out. When June tried to reach out and pluck the baby up, Joli snapped her teeth, threatening to bite. June tried persuasion, she tried threats, but all she succeeded in doing was frustrating Joli until she started to cry—though even _she_ didn't understand why._

"_NO! Don't wanna go home!"_

_June ran her fingers through her hair and forced herself to be calm. "Joli, we have to take you home. It's going to be dinner soon. Aren't you hungry?"_

"_No!"_

_June tried a stern voice next. "Joli, get out from under there, right now, or you'll be in big trouble."_

"_No!"_

"_I'm going to count to three! One… two… two and a half…"_

"_No, no, no!" She started to cry louder, screaming in earnest._

"_Move," Meta ordered as she stepped around June, taking control. "Joli Ann Erlich! If you don't get out from under there right this instant, I swear to God—Daddy will come walking down this road and take you home, back to Central! You want that, huh?"_

* * *

"Then, Joli rushed straight out without another tear shed. So Meta, why was your father taking you home such a threat?"

_Tell them. They'll understand. They love you. _

"I don't remember that," said Meta. "Your memory is wrong."

Al glanced at his older brother, who was passing him a questioning look, and gave Ed a look that silently said, "My memory isn't wrong."

Ed nodded, then glanced at Joli and down at Winry, who was failing spectacularly at controlling her tears. The look meant, "I'll take care of Winry; you take care of Joli."

Al's eyes flicked to Meta.

Ed rolled his eyes.

Al shrugged in a "Fine, whatever you say" way and scooped up Joli. "C'mon, let's go play outside," he said merrily, as if nothing was wrong.

Meta watched the Elrics, Winry, and her little sister leave the room in two pairs. When they were gone she collapsed onto the bed and started to cry into her pillow.

_They love you,_ Eli repeated. _Why didn't you just tell them? It would have been easy._

"Shut up, shut up? Why do you keep talking to me?" Meta sobbed.

_Because you keep listening._

_

* * *

_**Oh, and by the way: Don't be too worried about Ed, okay? He's not sick. For the same reason that Luna collapsed in the woods, Ed is having stomach pains. It's just the stress.**


	29. Headache

29

**Short chapter. I'm sorry!**

* * *

The first question Luna asked herself when she came to was not something appropriate to the situation like _What happened?_ or _Why am I no longer outside?_ or _Why does my head hurt so darn much?_ Her first thought when she woke up was, very simply, _Oh shit._

The reasoning for the rude mental ejaculation, which was generally not her style of thinking, came either very quickly before the thought itself or very slowly after; it was hard to be sure. If thoughts are circles, Luna's thoughts were rectangular prisms with varying numbers of misshapen hexagonal cutouts on the faces.

All Luna really knew upon waking was that she was not where she was supposed to be. Last she remembered, she was in some uncleared plot of land (exactly why she was there was kinda hazy) and she had fallen asleep. She vaguely recalled the sensation of coldness, wetness, then some sort of violence or impact, a silly dream about Al, and then... nope, that was it. Now she was in a room that gave her déjà vu, but she had no idea why that would be. It felt as if she had been here before and really ought to recognize the place, but no location came to mind. Furthermore, the fact that she was in... well, whatever place she was... meant that she was not where she should have been. She should have been at the Rockbell house, and she should be sitting with Meta and listening to that night's story. Or, depending on how late it was, she should be writing the story down already. Poor Meta, having to go without Luna for a night! Now the whole routine would be ruined, or at least disheveled.

Luna sat up in what she quickly figured out was a quite uncomfortable bed with rails. It was then that she started having the thoughts that most people would have been having right off.

_What happened?_

_Why am I no longer outside?_

_Why does my head hurt so darn much?_

Of the three, the last thought was most stressing, as she really did have quite a spectacular migraine in progress. This was unhelped by the fact that someone was talking somewhere, much too loudly and much too close.

"Shh," she said without thinking.

"Luna, you're awake!" one of the voices exclaimed immediately.

There was the sound of someone's hand clamping over his mouth. "Geez, Al, announce it to the world why don't you!"

"She's trying to say something, both of you shut up!" said the third and farthest away. (This was because Winry was standing in the doorway, not actually in the room, but Luna had no way of knowing this, as she had not had a good look at what was on that side of the room since the headache made it impossible to turn her head.)

_I'm sorry if this offends whatever deity is keeping an eye on me here, but..._ "My head fucking _hurts_..."

"Well, what did you think?" Ed burst out. "Running away from us, hanging out in the woods for no goddamn reason, letting a fucking TREE fall on your head, what the hell did you exp—"

"Brother, that's enough!"

"Is it entirely necessary that you antagonize the one person in the house who is injured?" Winry added.

"Anyone who's not injured probably isn't doing something stupid and therefore meriting antagonization," Ed said matter-of-factly.

Winry sighed in exasperation. "Why don't you call General Mustang and scream out your aggression at him for awhile? You always seem to have such fun ragging on him," she suggested.

"I 'rag' on him?" Ed repeated. "You make it sound so trivial, like I've been tripping him on the sidewalk or tickling him while he's on the monkey bars."

"With you, everything can be trivialized back to the playground," Winry teased.

"I can think of some noteworthy exceptions," Ed jested in return. "Come to think of it, I've got quite a list of things stored up to yell at Mustang about. Remind me to call him up later. I'll probably forget."

"I'll probably forget too, but hopefully between the two of us we'll remember."

"All of you—_shhh_!" Luna growled.

"Sorry," Winry whispered loudly.

"I'll get you an aspirin," Al offered, standing up. (Luna never thought to wonder why they all happened to be in the room when she woke up. What she never found out, and never really cared to bother asking, was that they had gone there to be in a room that was far away from Meta and Joli. They had been discussing the situation, which also explained why they had been talking when logically one would expect them to be quieter in the patient room when it was occupied.)

"Aspirin!" Luna scoffed. "Might as well bring sugar water! I want some damn opium."

Al stared at her blankly for a minute. "You're joking...?"

Winry giggled. "How'd you not get that immediately, Al? Blonde moment."

"Blondes aren't stupid," said Ed nonchalantly as he was standing up to leave. "How dare you perpetuate that stereotype?" He was only pretended to be offended, hence the smart words.

"Ooh, big words from the blonde," Winry teased.

"How can you even say that when you're blonde too?"

"We're all blondes here," said Winry, in the exact same tone with which a middle-school girl would say "We're all girls here" to a friend who was shy about changing in front of others in the locker room for the first time. "I can say what I want."

"Then please, for the love of all that is holy, say NOTHING!" Luna pleaded. Their voices were like jackhammers drilling into her skull.

"She's grouchy," said Ed.

"Well, I would be too," said Al defensively.

"C'mon, Ed, let's leave," said Winry, nudging him. "He's got this. Right, Al?"

"Yeah, it's cool," said Al, giving her a thumbs-up for emphasis.

They both exited then, taking all their irritating noise with them.

Al left temporarily too, and Luna almost managed to fall back asleep. Before she could entirely do so, however, Al came back into the room. Even the noise of his feet on the wood was jarring and painful.

When she groaned, Al didn't realize she wanted silence and spoke anyway. "I have some aspirin for you, and water. If you're hungry I can get you some of the leftover food from dinner. You've been sleeping for a while. (That reminds me, I should call the doctor and let him know you're finally up.)"

"Ahhh..." Luna mumbled, trying to keep steady and she sat up slowly and accepted the pills from him. For the moment she simply stared at them as if she had never seen an aspirin before in her life. "How long was I asleep?"

"It's Friday night," he said.

"_Friday?_" Luna repeated, alarmed. "It's been _two whole days_?"

Al fidgeted with the necklace—her necklace—she was glad he still wore it; glad he hadn't tried to give it back. She had never wanted it back. "We were really scared about you," he said softly.

"W-... uh... why?" Luna asked, bewildered.

"Because there's not much you can do if someone has a concussion... The doctor told me that... that... that if you didn't wake up, there wasn't anything he could do about it. We were just worried, that's all."

Luna forced herself to tip back the water and pills, then she dropped down to the blankets as soon as she was done. Movement made her dizzy. "We?"

Al made a vague, sweeping gesture. "You know, everyone."

"Sounds like a singular plural..." she mumbled. She was trying to stay awake, but it was difficult. Her head swam.

"Uh, yeah..." Al agreed before it sank in. "...Wait, what?"

Luna smiled with her eyes closed. "Ed and Winry don't really care about me... don't say we."

"Why would you say that?" Al repeated weakly. "Brother... uh... uh... well, Winry likes you, I think!"

"Hmm..." Luna sighed, unable to respond before she fell asleep again.


	30. August

**My laptop broke, my desktop has cookie issues that make FFnet malfunction, and I only just got through with Week 1 of final-exam testing. Why does God like to pile on all the stressful things at once? It doesn't seem fair. Anyway, here is your enormous chapter (11 pages! Holy moly!), which I hope makes up for missing the last update.**

* * *

A few weeks went by, a few hot summer nights, a few arguments, even more heated, a few more stomachaches and unexpected storms, but nothing seemed to come close to that first week when Ed, Al, and Winry had come home.

Greed and Ran Fan hadn't been inclined to stick around. As they were leaving that very same evening, Greed had offered Ed only one tidbit: "Keep an eye out. Next time you see me, I'll be on a throne."

The world soon became only as large as Resembool, and usually less so.

On that first night when Winry had pleaded with Ed to stay, she had experienced no nightmares (or if she had, there was nothing so vivid that she remembered it when she woke up), but when Ed kept to his promise that it was "only just this once" the following three nights, the nightmares had returned again to prey on her insecurities and grief. On the fourth night (that is, six days after the day that they returned from the quarantine camp) Winry had woken up from a vivid night terror, something random about snakes and being lost in an active volcano (how you could actually get lost in a volcano was beyond her, once she had woken up and put some thought into it, but she reasoned that dreams don't have to make sense to be scary) and without really thinking about it she had gone to Ed's room, seeking comfort. By the time she was in there she had woken up enough to realize that she wasn't sure she wanted to wake him. It didn't seem fair to disturb his sleep, but it felt like a violation to slip into bed next to him, and she certainly didn't want to go back and sleep on her own. It was a frustrating dilemma, and she had stood there for several minutes, staring at him and feeling stalkerish, before she gave up and sat down on the floor next to his bed (her limbs were weak from being called out of sleep prematurely). She had languished there for an hour or so, and eventually sleep had closed her eyes and she had fallen asleep right there on the hardwood floor.

The next morning Ed had woken her with a very puzzled look on his face and asked her what she was doing. However, Winry had been too mortified to explain, and she had come up with some half-formed excuse that made very little sense and which she almost immediately forgot in her haste to get out of the room.

The next night Winry had done the same thing, much to Ed's vexation the following morning. On the third night of her coming there, Winry had resolved to actually wake him this time to save herself from the embarrassment of being caught like the previous two mornings. She was saved from having to do this when she found that Ed had waited up for her this time. Without asking any questions he had offered her his bed.

Much like their late-night kissing earlier that year, sleeping together became a routine about which speaking was absolutely taboo. They simply did not discuss it, and that was all there was to it.

(And while on the subject, Ed and Winry by no means ceased doing that either. The late-night kissing seemed more suggestive since they were also sleeping in the same bed at night, but nothing ever happened.

(Oh, not that it wasn't _thought_ of! Even teenagers who don't have such easy targets think about those sorts of things, but firstly, Winry was in no state to do anything only a week and a half after Pinako… well, Ed was upset about that too of course, having been taken in by the woman after Trisha, but Ed's main rationale was that he knew better than most people that just because you want something, doesn't mean you'll necessarily be ready to face the consequences.)

As soon as Dr. Conway had given Luna the stamp of approval, she wanted to get back to doing everything that she had been doing before the collapse. She seemed to have some sort of complex about 'earning her keep.' Since they needed as much help as they could get to keep the house running, Ed, Al, and Winry hadn't really had the option of insisting she rest up.

So Luna had been allowed to resume her previous duties, but Al had had the forethought to stipulate that she was not allowed to overwork herself and cause another incident like that to occur, and also that if any of them felt she was doing too much, she must immediately cease. This meant that if Al (and only Al, since no one else actually worried their heads about it) came downstairs and caught Luna awake at odd hours, or if he thought she looked tired, he was allowed to send her to bed. (Luna didn't mind this; quite often even before the incidents of the fever epidemic, she had plumb forgotten to go to sleep. Or eat. It wasn't really her fault; she just never seemed to get tired when it was sleeping time for other people, and when she was tired, it was always at inconvenient times when she couldn't go to sleep. Eventually her body had gotten used to the odd hours and it hadn't bothered her.)

Winry still had to deal with the problem of what to do with Rockbell Automail, which now had two locations and one mechanic too few. For now, Winry spent most of her time in the shop, building back orders for her clients in Lior as well as here, while refusing to take new ones until she worked out something permanent. 'Something permanent' seemed to be having to do with her correspondence with several young mechanics currently living in Rush Valley, who all wished to become the first real 'employee' of Rockbell Automail. On top of that, Winry was also working on something totally secret in the shop, which she kept locked up at night and when she wasn't there. Whatever the project was, it took up every ounce of her free time, so that she was rarely seen except for twice a day at meals, and even then only if she remembered about food. (Ed was the exception, of course, since they 'saw' each other every night—if it could be called that.)

Al had finally gotten around to telling Luna his story, starting from the day Hohenheim left. It took almost a week since they had so little time to themselves, but he told her everything he could remember (occasionally aided by Ed or Winry if they were around or if he forgot things).

Ed had obeyed Winry's jesting suggestion to place a call to General Mustang. For once, Ed had actually gotten the General on the phone in person (usually Hawkeye answered) and they had had a very interesting discussion, as Ed put it: "We very animatedly explained our differences in opinion about the best way to go about disaster relief in the case of incidents like recently. I explained that there is a very significant difference between a quarantine facility and a concentration camp, and the call came to an abrupt halt shortly after I concluded that he's a lazy, moronic, womanizing, and useless waste of the very air he changes into carbon dioxide in his alveoli."

Despite Luna's overwork, Ed's penchant for making trouble, and Winry's dilemma, the general trend in the weeks after_ that first unspeakable one _was that the drama seemed to be spiraling down and morphing into a comfortable routine.

Meta seemed to be spiraling down, too… but with quite the opposite connotation.

If she had hardly left her room before, now Meta never left it. The only person who was allowed in was Luna; anyone else would get screamed out. After a month or so Meta had gradually stopped screaming them out and would make passive-aggressive comments to anyone who intruded until they became disturbed by it and went away. The lack of screaming everyone took for a good sign (only a very good psychiatrist would have known better, really) and proof that Meta was healing. In reality, Eli would chat to Meta in her head almost constantly unless she drank him away. Ironically, Eli said only constructive things and gave her consistently good advice, which made the fact that she was _hearing voices_ even more frustrating.

The lack of screaming was not a sign that Meta was getting better; it was a sign that she was getting worse.

Meta's tenth birthday near the end of August went by unnoticed. It wasn't as if Luna, Al, Winry, Ed, and Joli didn't care, it was just that nobody knew when her birthday was except she, and she hadn't told them. Celebration without Eli there seemed hollow and pointless. This was the first birthday since her father had died, too.

As soon as she was sure Luna was asleep, Meta had made her way to the liquor cabinet as she often did, ignoring Eli's pleas for her to stop.

"Happy birthday to me," she mumbled with tears in her eyes, then she drank as much as she could swallow and then some.

Twenty minutes later, after drinking way too much alcohol for her small body (and much too fast) she had stumbled back to her bedroom and collapsed on the bed, feeling more depressed than when she had started. At least Eli was silent now.

The sunny morning of August 24th had seen the newly ten-year-old Meta Erlich pathetically suffering from her first real hangover, and nobody but she had any clue.

The death of August brought another interesting problem to the Rockbell home: Would Meta be going back to school?

The four 'big kids' (this was becoming like a title, really) met up in the patient room two weeks before the school year was scheduled to start. The currently unused patient room had become the informal discussion room.

"She just spends all her time in her room reading those books," said Al. (By 'books,' he meant the stack of books that Meta always had in her room. They didn't know where she was getting them or what they contained, and she never answered questions.) "If she can't handle us, how is she going to handle a class of thirty kids?"

"They'll ask questions," Winry agreed. "You know how kids talk."

"I think she'll be okay," said Luna. "She's better than she was in a lot of ways."

"And worse in some ways, too," Winry pointed out. "She's been sick a lot lately… those stomachaches and headaches…"

"I think it's stress," said Al. "She knows the school year is coming and she's afraid we'll make her go."

"I don't think so," Ed disagreed. "I think going back to school will be a good way to take her mind off of things."

"You have a point," said Winry. "It can't be good for her to be holed up in there thinking constantly of him." (They hadn't referred to Eli by name since July.)

"Exactly. School will be a good distraction for her."

"You might have something there," said Al. "This reminds me of how we dealt with Mom's death, by studying the alchemy we wanted to use to bring her back."

"The denial that her death was final kind of defeated the point of getting over her, but I see where you're going with this: Occupying one's mind with studying makes it harder to dwell on the past."

"Yeah."

"Doesn't that seem like a fake way to make her get over it?" Winry asked. "Distraction isn't the same as solution. This would just be a mask… a façade… a placebo. What's the help?"

"If a placebo has an effect, is it any less real than the real thing?" asked Ed rhetorically.

Winry didn't have a response to that.

"So are we all in agreement?" Luna asked.

"I am," said Al.

"Yep," said Ed.

"As long as we ask her about it first," Winry stipulated.

"Of course," said Luna and Al simultaneously.

"Duh," said Ed.

"Good," Winry said (but not before sticking her tongue out at Ed).

Ed smirked at her in response, then banged his closed fist on the bed behind him like a gavel and said "Meeting adjourned."

"Oh, hush up, why don't you," said Winry, tugging on his earlobe as she walked past him to leave the room. She was headed towards the shop, where she spent most of her time, but just as she was exiting the room she stopped and said "Oh!"

"Yeep!" Luna said when she accidentally walked into Winry.

"Ah! Sorry!" Winry flustered.

"Why did you stop?" Al asked, amused by the yeeping.

"I forgot something."

"What did you forget?"

"Just that I need you to come downstairs with me, Ed."

"What for?" Ed asked. "Come on, I got stuff to do!"

"You don't do anything."

"But… well, yeah, but if I did do stuff, you'd be interrupting it."

"But you don't, and I'm not. So c'mon, I promise it won't take too long. Please? It'll be worth your while, I swear."

Ed gave her a mischievous look. "Will it be worth my while or 'worth my while'?"

Winry scowled as she deciphered his suggestive tone. "Not in the way you're thinking. Just c'mon and I'll explain down there." She was already heading out, so Ed followed her.

"What is it?"

"Umm, how to explain… well, do you remember when we were quarantined a couple months ago because of the Fever?"

"Yeah, how could I forget?"

"Well, there was this thing… I was drawing a sketch of something, do you remember, and you were so frustrated because I didn't want you to see it?"

"Uh…" Ed had to think for a minute.

* * *

_At midday (it was hard to tell exactly, but it was after the first meal of the day and before the second) Winry stopped pacing the room suddenly and went to her traveling bag, producing a notebook of some kind and a pencil that had been sharpened too many times. She began either sketching or writing something, but she wouldn't let anyone see. (To be fair, the Ouverts and Alphonse didn't much care to know what was in the book, while Ed only didn't want to know after he found out the hard way that she would whack anyone with a wrench who tried to peer over her shoulder.) She seemed very animated about what she was drawing, which made it even more annoying to watch her work._

* * *

"Oh! I remember. I seem to recall you hitting me, too," he reproached. "Is it that you're trying to make me stupider? Keep it up, seems to be working."

She smiled a little. "Your fault. You're too nosy for your own good. Anyway, I finished it."

"Finished what?"

"The prototype."

"Prototype of _what_?"

"It's a… new feature for automail."

Ed slowed his walk to an almost-stop. "I don't like where this is going. If you've made a prototype of something, then am I the guinea pig? No deal."

Winry stopped when she realized he had and turned around, clasping her hands together in front of her in a pleading gesture. "Pleeeeeeeeeeease? I swear you'll love it!"

"What's so great about this prototype that you think I'll actually notice a difference, let alone care?"

She grinned. "Trust me, you'll notice a difference."

* * *

"Looks… shiny," said Ed, censoring himself from informing her that it was the shiniest, most pretty piece of automail he had ever seen in his life. Totally worth the two months it had taken her to conceptualize and build. Giving her such an immense compliment like that would make him sound like Mustang. Plus, it would just inflate her ego.

"I know. I spent a whole week on the exterior making it perfect."

"OCD much? You could build three and a half arms in that time. What took so long, then?"

"Well, I was working between projects, of course. But I still spent a lot of time on it. And like I said, a new feature that I'm really excited to try on you. So give me that—" she set the shiny arm down on the table and gestured toward Ed's arm. He rolled his eyes and lifted his right arm, holding it straight out to the side (for safety reasons, this was the only position at which it could be removed). Then Winry reached under it and yanked the release near his underarm so it detached and fell into her waiting hands.

She set that arm carefully down on the worktable (which had been cleared of all tools for today) and picked up the shiny arm, then went back to Ed and looked at the automail in her hands.

"Why are you hesitating?" Ed asked.

"Uh, well, I'm not sure how much this will change things, but… well…"

"What are you babbling about?" he said in annoyance. "Attach your damn prototype, fiddle with a few adjustments, then give me back my old arm so I can go upstairs and eat whatever that positively orgasmic smell is." Luna was making some sort of soup or stew for dinner that evening.

"Maybe you shouldn't sit on that stool."

"Why, is there something wrong with it?"

"It won't support your back if—"

"If what?"

"I'm probably overreacting, actually. Here, on the count of three: one," she aligned the arm and the port; "two," she hooked it on the catch and stuck the aligner in position; "and—" On three, Winry hooked the aligner around and simultaneously shoved forward to connect the nerves. Ed promptly gave a half-formed scream which cut off as he blacked out and slumped. Winry cursed, dropped the aligner to the floor (the metal rang against the concrete) and threw her arms around him before he could fall, then she hurriedly kicked the stool out from under him and lowered him to the floor. "Ed! Ed!"

He came to a second later and started cussing violently, starting with "What the fucking hell was that?" and it only got worse from there.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"That—you—you fucking killed me! What did you do?"

"I didn't know the connection would be that much of a shock to your system!"

"What the fuck did you do to it?" he demanded, rubbing different random parts of his body with his left hand as the nerves under his skin prickled oddly. "Why'd it do that?"

"Well, the extra nerves—"

"Stop right there. What extra nerves?"

"It's easier just to show you, actually." She grabbed his right hand and put it in the center of her chest. "What do you feel?"

Ed gave her an odd, still somewhat annoyed look until he seemed to notice something interesting. Then his jaw dropped in amazement and he forgot his anger as he realized what she had done to this arm. "It's… I feel… warmth. And—hold still for a sec… Is that…?"

Winry barely breathed as she watched him marveling.

"Your heartbeat…" he whispered. "Extraordinary…"

Winry beamed. "I figured out a way to make the hydraulic muscles take up less space, so there was room for more nerve receptors. The ones in your palm are most sensitive, but there are sensors up and down your arm. The tradeoff for this is, I don't know exactly how sturdy the new hydraulics will be, which is why I need an automail user who I can keep an eye on to see how it performs with different loads. (I've stress tested it of course, but automail often works differently when it's attached to a person. For example, I can see if a leg can kick a ball, but I can't accurately factor in the momentum of running towards the ball, the way the body's weight strains the leg before, during, and after the kick, etc.) Anyway, for an observational subject, you fit the bill quite nicely." She traced her fingers all the way up and down the line of his arm to show him the sensitivity. Ed's eyes followed her fingers. "What do you think?"

"Wow…" Ed seemed to have been rendered speechless as he oh-so-lightly touched the palm of his right hand with the fingers of his left. "It's really sensitive."

"I tried to cram as many individual sensors in there as I could. In your palm there are about ten per square inch of tactile and temperature both; in your fingertips it's more like twelve. For the wrists and inner arm there are about five. There are three temperature sensors per square inch on the outside of your lower arm, but no touch sensors since you use that part of your arm for blocking hits, usually… I figured it was best to exclude those. And there are two per square inch of each type of sensor on the upper arm."

"Uh-huh…" Ed was only half listening, still intent on experiencing the sensitivity of his new arm.

"You like it?" Winry asked after a moment of silence.

"Like it?" he repeated, finally looking up at her again with a fervent glint in his eyes. "That would be a gross underestimation. I'm amazed. It's amazing. _You're_ amazing."

Winry didn't know what to do with the compliment, so she went for a joke, which was simpler than seriousness: "Running out of synonyms?"

"Ha. I guess so." He looked down at his hand again and traced the plain stone floor of the shop, feeling the texture as if for the first time. "It's almost like having flesh again…"

"That's what I was going for," she said, grinning at his continued wonderment. "So are you still going to insist on having your old arm back after you've tried on this one?"

"Can't I keep it?"

"I was hoping you would say that, actually. New machines don't always work the way they're supposed to on the first try, so I'll probably have to be on your case a lot about how it's performing, especially in the first couple weeks of use. For now, though, it looks to be working fine, so I'll just put this old arm on the shelf to collect dust or something."

"What about that nerve thing that happened to me earlier? Isn't that some kind of malfunction? I was thinking you were gonna take this one off because of that…"

Winry shook her head as she was jumping up to put the arm on the empty shelf on which she wanted to keep it (the jumping wasn't going so well). "That should have been a one-time thing. It'll happen again when I attach the modified leg, too, but if I were to detach that new arm right now and reattach it, it shouldn't hurt any more than normal."

Ed looked doubtful. "That's a lot of shoulds in there."

"You know how people say 'this isn't machine science' **(AN: No rocket science here)** or 'this isn't brain surgery' when they're talking about things that appear difficult but aren't? Well, Ed, this is both machine science _and_ brain surgery. This is the realm of science where things start to get iffy."

"Touché." He went over, took the arm from her, and put it on the high shelf without difficulty, then snatched her wrist and pulled her close. (It was just good luck that this movement turned out perfectly, like part of a dance. Normally, someone bumped their chin or tripped when that move was attempted—of course, that was always quickly forgotten.) Ed traced Winry's bottom lip with the index finger of his right hand. "I feel like I have some kind of newfound power. But I feel like I want to use my power for evil. You don't mind, do you?"

Winry barely blushed as she hooked her arms around his neck. "What is good and evil, right? Religion is supposedly good, but then there are corrupt priests, arbitrary rules, prejudices that don't make sense, and everything fun is a sin."

"How philosophical of you."

"I have my moments."

"You're right about that last bit especially. Everything fun is a sin. Luckily, I'm going to hell anyway—"

"So we can do whatever we want," Winry finished for him.

"See, this is why I like you so much," Ed grinned. "Little needs to be explained."

"Oh, good, I was so concerned that you didn't _like_ me," Winry joked. "This alleviates all of my insecurities!"

"Glad to be of assistance."

"Are you stalling for some reason?" she asked. They were standing there with their arms around each other, not doing anything worth noting except talking. "I see how it is, all bark and no bite."

Ed looked a little annoyed at the presumption, but it was feigned. "All bark and no bite? I'll show you bite." He led them both forward so that Winry had to walk backwards blindly until he had her cornered against the wall. "You won't be able to wear these tiny clothes though, after I'm through." He kissed her jaw first, then moved to her neck once she lifted her chin to give him access. Meanwhile, his right hand moved across cloth and skin over her soft curves, delighting in the assortment of feelings he was sensing (even if it wasn't nearly as acute as the real thing). "Everyone will know what we do in our free time," he finished his thought.

Winry giggled a little breathlessly. "I'll invest in turtlenecks."

He chuckled too. "Good plan, Win."

* * *

Luna stopped in front of the door and steeled herself before knocking. Meta was never nice, and while Luna was used to people being mean to her, that didn't mean that insults and rude words didn't hurt.

"Is it better if I come with you or wait here?" asked Al.

"Depends," Luna responded. "Let's see what kind of a mood she's in this afternoon." She tapped lightly on the door.

"Go away," Meta growled as soon as she heard Luna's knock.

"It's me," said Luna.

"I know bloody well who it is and I want you to go away."

"Bad mood then," said Al. "I should wait?"

"Actually this is probably a good mood. She hasn't said the F word yet and she hasn't screamed for us to get the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out."

"Great, in _that_ case…" Al muttered.

Luna knocked again. "Can I come in? I have something important to talk to you about."

"It better be more important than the intactness of your bodies. Hmm, is that even a word?" There was the sound of Meta getting out of bed and shuffling around her room—probably putting away whatever book she was reading so they couldn't see it. "Get in here, both of you and make this quick."

Luna pumped her fist in the air as if this was a big accomplishment, then sobered and let herself in.

Meta was splayed across the bed facedown with her arms wrapped around the pillow, while the blanket was lying on the floor looking much-abused. She was wearing the same pajamas she'd been wearing four days ago and her hair looked like it hadn't been washed in as long. The place smelled stale like sickness. The curtains of thick forest-green muslin were closed and the light was, as usual, off—and Luna, as usual, pulled the chain to turn it on again.

Meta owned no toys or personal items besides clothes and books, and few of those at that. Somehow despite the scarcity of possessions, she had managed to make the place look totally trashed.

Al looked like he wanted to comment (since Luna was usually the only one allowed in, he hadn't been aware of the state of disarray of Meta's room) but Luna hushed him with a look.

Luna sat down on the end of the bed, and Al leaned against one of the posts. (The latter was really only here for moral support—not that Luna needed it—he had come of entirely his own volition.) "How ya feeling, Me-mee?"

Meta grunted noncommittally.

That wasn't a negative, so Luna took it as a positive. "Would you sit up and look at me? I have something to talk to you about."

"No."

"Then I'm sure you will have a wonderfully enlightening conversation with the headboard," said Al with a tinge of uncharacteristic sarcasm. (It wasn't his fault. The earlier comparison of himself and Ed to Meta was making him wonder if, without alchemy, he and his brother might have been like this. It was a painful image.)

"Not helping," said Luna under her breath.

"I'll have you know this headboard and I are great friends," Meta said in a tone like "Screw you."

Al held his tongue this time.

"Anyway, what do you want?" Meta asked without pretending to be civil.

"Well, the school year is starting in a few weeks…"

"Don't care," Meta interrupted.

"We think it would be good for you if you went back to school on the 18th," Luna continued over her. "It's not healthy to be holed up in here all the time, Me-mee. Look how pale you're getting!" And skinny. Was she eating her meals? Luna held her hand up to compare it to Meta's.

"I don't recall skin pigmentation being a measure of how necessary it is to attend school," Meta said icily, withdrawing her hand from Luna's grasp.

"Your friends will be sad if they don't see you in class, you know."

"What friends? I'm a freaky city girl. They don't like me that much."

"If you don't show up in class—"

"—they'll assume I went back to Central to be with my own kind."

"Your own _kind_? Oh, come on!" Al burst out. "Luna, look, she obviously wants to pick a fight about this. Let's just go and let her on her own."

Luna ignored him. "Give me a break! I AM one of those rural kids, and I know for a fact that we're not that cliquey."

"You don't know anything!" Meta shouted. It was the standard phrase she reverted to when she was too upset for reason.

"So you don't want to go?" Luna summarized. "You want to stay in this room until you're too old and rickety to leave? Look, you don't have to if you don't want to. We just needed to know." She walked out, followed by a hesitant Al, who looked like he didn't know whether to attempt to comfort Luna or turn around and give Meta a piece of his mind.

_You hurt their feelings, I think. _

"Serves them right."

_What did they do to you? Nothing. Nothing at all. You should say sorry._

"What for? All she ever does is bother me when I just wanna be alone. She deserves all the verbal abuse she gets."

_You don't really believe that, do you?_

"I don't believe in ghosts either, but _you_ never shut up."

_What I don't understand is why you told them no. You used to tell me all the time about how much you love school in Resembool compared to Central. And you know your friends will miss you. So why did you lie to Luna?_

Meta sat up and hugged the pillow. "I don't know. I didn't think, I just did the opposite of what she wanted me to. Like a reflex."

_Your reflexes suck. Go back to Luna and ask her to enroll you for this year._

"No."

_Yes. _

"No."

_Yes. _

"No."

_I'm your big brother, and I told you to do it, so do it!_

"You can't make me if I don't wanna!"

_You just said a minute ago that you do want to. _

"Shut up!"

_Spoken like a true psychotic. _

"Damn you!"

_You don't mean that. _

Meta flung her pillow against the wall with as much force as it is possible to put into a pillow. "FINE!" She flung the door open angrily, stomped through the house, and found everyone in the kitchen, where Ed was in the doorway to the stairs down to the shop, telling Al and Luna all about something amazing which he hadn't quite gotten to explaining when Meta appeared.

"Oh, you're out of your room?" said Ed, interrupting his story to look at her in surprise. First Luna, then Al a second later, turned to see who he was talking to.

Meta stopped a foot from Luna. "I've changed my mind," she said stiffly.

"So soon—?" Al started to ask.

Luna made a nonsensical "nnn!" noise to hush him. "So you want to be enrolled in school now?"

"Uh-huh."

"Okay, we'll take care of it, Me-mee." Luna patted Meta's shoulder. "Is that all you wanted to say?"

"Uh-huh." Meta turned around and fled to her room again.

"The first time she's left the room in months and she only bothers to say…" Ed paused to count, "…six words?"

"Better than nothing," said Luna.

Al stared at the place where Meta had been standing. "Is it really?"


	31. Liar, Liar

**Happy Towel Day! If anyone knows what this means, then you will probably have fun finding the HHGTTG refs in here. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then you're a normal person.**

* * *

"Me-mee!" Syiera squealed when Meta trudged into sight of the schoolhouse. The excitable redhead had put her hair up in pigtails for the first day of school and was wearing a summer-green cotton sleeveless dress. Syiera ran to Meta and embraced her, and Meta wondered if it wasn't time to get a less happy best friend. "I didn't see you all summer! Did you go on vacation? Why didn't you write me? Gosh, you look so skinny! You know, my mom says it's a bad idea to try to be skinny just to fit into a bathing suit! And you know what else my mom also says, too? She says boys are pigs and she would be happy if I grew up and became a les—"

"Don't finish that sentence," interrupted Ashley, who had also walked up to meet Meta, but at a less hurried pace. The chestnut-haired ten-year-old was wearing a pair of jeans with the remnants of permanent grass stains on the knees and a bright purple halter top.

"Oh, don't be a party pooper!" Syiera admonished. "I wasn't doing anything wrong! Meta was just about to tell us all about her summer vacation, weren't you, Me-mee?"

"I didn't go on vacation," Meta said softly.

"Oh? Well, where were you then? I missed you!"

"I was at home." No emotion was finding its way into her tone, despite her attempts to force it.

_Correction: At home making yourself miserable. Tell them about me, _Me-mee_. Do it! Or are you forgetting me already?_ _I almost wish you would. The way you act makes me sick. SICK!_

"You spent ALL SUMMER at home?" Syiera repeated incredulously.

"Sounds pure dead boring," said Ashley. "What'd you do all that time, pair socks?"

_Tell them about me! Tell them! Tell them what you hear! DO IT! You need help! Tell them what you wouldn't tell your family. They're your friends. They love you. They'll help you. Do it!_

"I didn't do anything," said Meta. "Read books, I guess, and that's it."

"Ew. Reading," said Syiera. "You should have come to my house. My mom made me and Ash and Sunny and Tricia ice cream and snowcones and stuff. Right, Tricia?" She turned to the newest addition to their group.

"She had a new treat every day!" Patricia confirmed. She had thin blond hair past her shoulders with several blue streaks, especially near her bangs. She was wearing faded denim, cut off just above the knee, and a blue tank top that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike the shade of cyan in her hair.

"She was having fun with the recipes she got out of storage," Syiera continued. "I was amazed at the amount of stuff Mom had in storage. She got it all out since Dad took all his crappy stuff out of our house."

"Oh! Remember the stinky sofa?" said Ashley. Everyone except Meta giggled.

_Look how happy they are. You could be that happy._

"Ew! Don't remind us," said Syiera. "Anyway, Me-mee, I'm sorry for getting us off track! Where were we?"

"Interrogating her for explanations about why she didn't come out and play over the summer," said Ashley.

"I didn't feel like playing…" said Meta.

_Come up with as many excuses as you want; they'll find out one way or another._

"Oh…" said Tricia. "Is it that…?"

"Ridiculous!" said Syiera. "Nobody can spend three whole months without wanting to play!"

"Foot in your mouth, Sy," said Tricia, then she leaned in and whispered something to Ashley and Syiera.

_How much do you think Tricia knows? Probably everything._

_Shut up,_ Meta thought at him.

"Oh, no…" Ashley mumbled in horror, looking at Meta with wide eyes. "I'm really sorry, Me-mee… I didn't know."

_Definitely everything. _

"Look, it's not your problem," said Meta, kicking the dirt at her feet. "Please don't… you know… treat me any different."

"No problemo, Me-mee!" said Syiera. "Gosh, and you know what else? My stupid cousin Jeffie was sick with the Fever and my dad wanted to make me go to his funeral and it was SO bor—"

"Sy," said Ashley.

"—and my mom said I shouldn't have been forced to—"

"Syiera!" said Tricia.

"—because Jeffie was just a chauvinis—"

Meta pushed past Syiera and Tricia and fled to the schoolhouse without another word.

"Where is she going?" asked Syiera.

"I think you hurt her feelings," said Ashley.

Syiera covered her mouth with her hand. "Oh, no."

"I feel really bad for her," said Tricia. "She was really close to her big brother. It must still hurt, even months after."

"Shouldn't we chase her?" asked Ashley. "What if she doesn't want to be alone?"

"What if she really does and we're just making it worse?" Tricia responded.

"If it were me, I would want someone to follow me," said Syiera.

"You're more social than Meta," said Ashley.

"We probably should go inside anyway," said Tricia. "Class will start soon."

"I hope we get to pick our own seats!" said Syiera, getting excited again.

* * *

While everyone else in Ms. Pomme's fifth-grade class was catching up with each other, swapping stories about their summers, and buzzing with anticipation about the upcoming year, Meta stood in isolation. Her friends grouped around her as if she was participating in the conversation, but she was unconnected. They were conversing near her, not with her.

She heard snippets of conversation:

"—my mom thinks I should have skipped a grade—"

"—it's true! Dad read it in the paper the other day!"

"—Sammy and Sarah? Did you hear their mom died?"

"—the Ellingtons moved to Rush Valley to live with their aunt and uncle, I think."

"—huge surprise party! She totally had no clue! It was great, couldn't have gone more smoothly."

"—well, at least she noticed before it got stuck in her hair!"

"—Meta is awfully quiet, isn't she?"

Meta looked up at the sound of her name.

Ashley glared. "Butt out of it, Max!"

"Nobody asked for your opinion," said Tricia disparagingly.

Max Ingalls, a dark-haired, energetic, and perpetually dirty kid from the other side of the train tracks. What did he care about whether or not Meta was quiet?

"Why don't you just mind your own beeswax?" said Syiera.

Max looked taken aback. "Sorry, didn't know I was prodding a dead weasel."

"I'll prod my foot up your behind if you don't get out of my sight," said Ashley.

Once Max had left, Ashley got high-fives from Syiera and Tricia. "Excellent!" said Tricia. "We owned that jerk!"

"Totally hoopy teamwork, girls!" said Syiera.

"It's too bad though, isn't it?" said Ashley. "He's absolutely adorable! I want to play with his hair, doesn't it look soft?"

"Oh, I _know_…" Tricia cooed, glancing back to make sure Max wasn't paying attention. "It's so cute!"

"You know what my mom says about good-looking guys?" Syiera began. "All men are only out for one—"

At that point, Meta tuned out of the conversation.

* * *

"Danielle Abel?"

"Here!"

"Xavier Adams?"

"Here."

"Jacob Andrews?"

"Present."

"Marina Bilioux?"

"Here."

"Jessycah Dorian?"

"I'm here!"

"Sarah Douglas?"

"She's not here," said Danielle, Sarah's best friend.

"Is she sick on the first day of the school?" asked Ms. Pomme. "How unfortunate."

"No, it's not that," said Danielle, uncomfortable. "I don't think she'll be in school for a while yet. Her mom died."

"Fair enough," said Ms. Pomme sympathetically. "Sai-ai-ee-rah… uh, what is this name? Miss Eiffel, are you here?"

"Sai-ee-EY-rah," said Syiera. "And I'm here."

"Noel Ellington?"

"He moved," said Jacob, Marina, and Tricia simultaneously.

Ms. Pomme crossed Noel off the class list. "Meta Erlich?"

Meta was listening to Eli and didn't hear her name called.

"Me-mee, she called you," said Syiera.

"Meta!" Ashley chucked an unsharpened pencil at Meta's head.

_Meta, you should pay more attention._

Meta looked up from the wood of her desk in surprise. The only thought that came to her mind was, _That's the name Eli calls me. _"Uhh…"

"Are you Meta?" asked Ms. Pomme patiently.

"Uhh…"

"Just say yes so she can finish the roll!" said Syiera.

"I'd like to be called Melinda," said Meta finally.

"Your middle name?" Ms. Pomme guessed, crossing out Meta's name and writing "Melinda" on the list.

"Yeah…" said Meta, feeling her friends' eyes on her.

"All right then," said Ms. Pomme. "Nora Gordon?"

"Here."

"Maxmilian Ingalls?"

"It's just Max."

"Sunny Keystone?"

* * *

"…And how many does that make? Put it into your calculators, guys," said Ms. Pomme.

Nora stuck her hand in the air almost immediately. "Forty-two! Is it forty-two?"

"Um, maybe you ought to try that problem again," said Mrs. Pomme, shaking her head.

Syiera passed back a folded piece of paper with hers, Tricia's, and Syiera's name written on it in Ashley's scrawl. In it, there was a surprisingly well-drawn caricature of Nora prostrate at Ms. Pomme's feet. Ashley had drawn an evilly grinning smiley face in the corner in lieu of a signature. In the margin, Tricia had written "Mean!" and Syiera's neat purple handwriting had responded, "But sooooo funny!" Meta shook her head, crumpled the paper into a ball, and lobbed it at Ashley's head. It missed and hit Marina in the next row. She opened the paper, glaring at Meta, then giggled a little, wrote something in the margin, and passed it to Jacob behind her.

"It's two o'clock, guys," announced Ms. Pomme. "You're all dismissed for recess."

Meta stood up slowly. Her name change was weighing on her mind, or rather; Eli was weighing it on her mind.

_Are you really trying to get rid of anything that reminds you of me? That's not going to work, you know._

"C'mon!" Syiera urged. "We have to claim the swings! Quick, before Jessycah and Allison!"

Meta was the fastest girl in the fourth grade and that hadn't changed over the summer. She raced to the swings and claimed theirs well ahead of the other girls, and in fact ahead of most of the boys (they weren't racing for the swings, of course—they were headed for the kickball field). She ran determinedly, as if by running she could get rid of the voice inside her head.

"Wow, Lindy," Syiera panted as she arrived and hopped onto her swing, claiming it. "How did you get so fast?"

Meta shrugged.

"'Lindy'?" repeated Ashley disbelievingly. "She's had that new name for three zarkin' hours! How did you come up with a nickname so fast?"

"I was brainstorming while Ms. Pomme was telling us the class rules," said Syiera unblushingly.

"I think Lindy is cute," said Tricia, the last to arrive.

"Lindy is fine," said Meta disinterestedly.

* * *

It was only about two weeks into the school year before Ms. Pomme took Melinda aside after school was out for the day. Melinda had been expecting this, of course; she was the only one who didn't talk during class, turn in homework, or do anything at all that suggested interest in learning. Just yesterday she had turned in a math quiz with "42" written as every answer.

Ms. Pomme had tried to talk to Melinda, but that didn't work—obviously—so she wrote out a note on an ominous slip of carbon paper, then tore off the pink copy and handed it to her. "Melinda, take this to your mom and dad, and—"

"I don't have a mom and dad," said Melinda sourly, glaring at the note.

Ms. Pomme looked like she'd just accidentally stepped on a bunny. "Oh—uh, sorry. Take this to your guardians, then. If I don't get a response from them, I'll have to make a trip to your house, and you don't want that."

"Hah," Melinda chuckled harshly, shoving the pink slip of paper in her bag and heading home.

* * *

"Hey, Me-mee, how was your day?" asked Luna, setting her notebook aside to focus her attention on the ten-year-old who had just entered the house with a bang.

Melinda had been about to grunt noncommittally and head for her room when Eli spoke.

_The note she gave you. Give Luna the note. _

"Oh, right," said Melinda. "Got a present for you."

"A present?" Luna said warily, getting up and heading over. "What is it?"

Melinda shoved the crumpled piece of pink paper into her hand and headed toward her room. _My responsible deed for the day is done. _

_Where are you going?_ asked Eli. _She's going to call you back in a moment anyway. You're probably in trouble._

"Meta," said Luna as Melinda made to leave. "What is this?"

"Note from my teacher," said Melinda dully. "I had hoped you could figure that out on your own."

"Why does your teacher want to see me on Friday after school?" asked Luna.

Melinda shrugged. "Dunno."

_Liar. _

Luna sighed. "I'll have to talk to my mother again. Your teacher's expecting an adult. Do you know how much bother this is going to be?"

"Eh," said Melinda without interest. "Sorry."

_Liar, liar, pants on fire._

* * *

_Rrrring._

_Rrrring._

_Rrrr-_

"Hello?"

"Mother?" Luna no longer called her mother "Mom." That implied a closeness she did not feel.

Luna's mother immediately jumped to conclusions. "The deal is that you don't come back. Ever. I've made it perfectly cl—"

"I'm not calling about that, Mother," said Luna impatiently.

"Then what?"

"Meta—"

"I signed all that brat's school papers already!"

"I'm not calling about that, Mother!" Luna shouted. "Let me finish a damn sentence before you attack!"

"Fine, what?"

"Meta got a letter from school from her teacher asking for a conference on Friday. I need you to be there since you're the adult."

"I can't—"

"You don't have to do anything. Ed volunteered to come along, too, and he'll be the eyes and ears for this household. He will carry the conversation, and we already have a lie prepared for why you don't participate. Basically we just need your physical presence to back up our story."

Mrs. Sisley sighed. "Fine. Friday?"

"Yes."

"At what time?"

"Three-thirty."

"The schoolhouse?"

"Yes."

"I'll be there." _Click._

* * *

"Hi, Ms. Pomme. I'm Mrs. Sisley, Meta's legal guardian." Mrs. Sisley shook Ms. Pomme's hand, firmly shaking it, then let herself into the classroom.

"And who might this young man be?" asked Ms. Pomme, looking curiously at Ed.

"That's Edward Elric. He sits for Meta when I'm at work and am unable to. I regret to say he sees her more than I do! It seemed appropriate to bring him along."

"Hello, Edward," said Ms. Pomme.

"Nice to meet you," said Ed, shaking her hand.

"Lefty?" asked Ms. Pomme in confusion.

"Yeah, sorry about that," said Ed. He had no choice, really, if he didn't want to explain the metal hand.

"Well, let's get down to business," said Ms. Pomme, going to sit at her desk. Ed and Mrs. Sisley pulled up chairs for themselves. "I've called you here, Mrs. Sisley, to talk about Melinda's behavior."

"Melinda?" Ed repeated.

"That's what she asked to be called. Have you never heard the nickname?"

"No, never," said Ed, filing that away to discuss with the others later.

"Well, Melinda, or Meta if you like, has been having problems in class."

"Has she been acting out?" asked Ed.

"Just the opposite," said Ms. Pomme. "She never speaks, not even when called on. She barely talks to the other students, even though her friends make sure to include her in everything. She doesn't turn in assignments, or when she does, she turns in this." Ms. Pomme produced a piece of paper and handed it to Mrs. Sisley, who pretended to glance over it, then handed it to Ed.

"42, 42, 42, 42," Ed read aloud. "She wrote down an arbitrary number instead of bothering to solve it?"

"Yes. Trying to teach Melinda is like trying to teach a box of cereal. Is there something going on at home that is causing her to act this way? I need to know about it."

"No," said Ed. "More like there was something going on at home."

"What happened?"

"Meta came to us last spring after her father had died. Her mother had passed away when she was younger. The child we met was a cynical, angry one, who refused to participate in the family except where her big brother—" even to a stranger, Ed tripped over Eli's name, "or her little sister Joli were concerned."

"The death of a parent is a very traumatic thing," said Ms. Pomme. "So you think that's where Melinda's problems are coming from?"

"Well, that's not all," said Ed. "During the outbreak of the Aerugean Fever this summer, my friend's grandmother—who had taken over guardianship of Meta—died as well."

"Oh, no," said Ms. Pomme, taken aback by the misfortune. "That must have been like losing her parents all over again."

"Even more jarring," Ed continued, "Meta's older brother also died."

"How terrible," Ms. Pomme whispered.

"We've been trying for months to try to get Meta to open up again. Even the angry Meta we first knew would be better than this silently festering one," said Ed, not specifying who 'we' was. "We thought that sending her to school might be a distraction to help her forget, but it doesn't seem to be helping."

"Do you think it would be better if we pulled Meta out of school again?" asked Mrs. Sisley.

"No, definitely not," said Ms. Pomme. "Any more life changes at this point would be a hindrance to her development. Melinda needs stability."

"If we do nothing, nothing will happen," said Mrs. Sisley.

"What you need to do is have Melinda talk to a counselor," said Ms. Pomme.

Ed chuckled. "I don't know what big city you came from, Ms. Pomme, but around here, counselors don't grow on trees. Got any other brilliant ideas?"

"Talk to her yourself," said Ms. Pomme. "But if it hasn't helped so far, it probably won't help. Perhaps she might do well with some anxiety medication? But a psychiatrist would have to prescribe it."

"She doesn't need drugs," said Ed.

"That's one opinion," said Ms. Pomme, giving Ed a dressing-down glare, like _who are you to tell me what she does and doesn't need, little kid?_

"Look, we'll deal with this at home," said Ed, standing up to leave. Mrs. Sisley stood up as well.

"Edward," said Ms. Pomme, "you are really underestimating the gravity of the situation. She's going to fail if this continues."

"You know, I don't think I'm underestimating anything," said Ed angrily.

"Come in, then," said Ms. Pomme.

"What?"

"Come into class one day. We're starting the new units in science and math on Monday, since we're done with the review, so why don't you just show up and watch the class sometime? You can see firsthand how little she cares for learning. Then maybe you'll rethink my suggestion."

"I don't think I will," said Ed.

"At least try it," said Ms. Pomme.

Ed looked at her for a few seconds, hesitating. "I'll think about it."


	32. Tension

**Shit. This chapter is yet another fillery one. I'm sorry! It's exam time, I've got a zillion projects due, and I can't think. For that reason, I am sorry to say I'm putting this fic officially on hold until June 10. (I think that's the last day of school. Not sure. Everybody gives me different numbers.) I need to get it together in real life. I'll still be writing, but I won't even attempt to make deadlines. You all are aware by now that ENAT is suffering, and I hate to see a story as fun as this flounder. **

**So, hiatus. June 10. Wish me luck in Chem and Calc 'cuz I'm gonna fail.  
**

* * *

It was pitch-dark in the Rockbell house. Winry couldn't see her hand in front of her face. She felt her way down the hall, feeling bad because of the dirt under her fingernails and wondering if she was going to get any on the walls. She was too tired to think, let alone think far enough ahead to go into the washroom and clean up. She stopped when her fingers found the doorknob and she oh-so-quietly eased the door open and snuck inside. She wanted to collapse on the bed right then and there, but she at least still had the wits to tug off her dirty clothes and take her hair out of the pony. Her eyes searched the room, which unlike the hall was lit by starlight from the window, and alighted on a shapeless black article of clothing lying discarded on the floor. It wasn't what she had just taken off, which by default made it clean in comparison to the greasy shop clothes she had just peeled off of her skin.

Barely awake, it took her a minute to work out which limb went in which hole of the shirt, and once it was on her body she realized it was much too loose-fitting and comfortable to be any article of hers. So, Ed's then.

Eh, better than nothing, and it wasn't as if she hadn't worn his clothes before. He never seemed to notice when things went missing.

Despite her valiant efforts to be silent, Ed woke as soon as her weight shifted the balance of his mattress. "Winry? Why are you waking up this early?"

"Ahh… 'm not."

"You're only just getting to bed?" he asked incredulously.

_Shut up_, she thought at him. _I'm asleep. _"Orders, y'know, gotta keep up with 'em."

He sat up a little more and rubbed his eye with the heel of his left hand. "You stayed up this late because of automail?"

"Yeah, how hard's that t'believe?" she snapped.

"God, Winry! You're going to work yourself sick!"

"I done that b'fore, s'not so bad." Her voice was slurring so bad it was a wonder she was still coherent.

"You're not listening to me."

"Tired."

"Fuck… well, so am I! Doesn't mean you're getting out of this!"

"Cussingzunnecessary."

"Fine." Ed scowled at her in the dark, as if she could see it anyway. "To be continued."

"Shhhh. Sleepin' here."

Winry let her eyes close fully and was immediately asleep.

Ed listened to her breathing and the faint sound of crickets outside. He was beginning to think the second shop had been a bad idea and was hoping she would find a helper very soon… he didn't think Winry would be able to continue to function like this much longer. Of course, this train of thought inevitably led to him wondering if this was the same feeling Winry had felt when he and Al had been researching human transmutation… this nervous feeling, watching her tax and overtax her body, was completely alien and completely frightening.

_Goddamn it,_ Ed thought presently. _I'm turning into a chick._

* * *

"Hey, guys!" Luna shouted to the house at large. "I don't feel like cooking! Who wants to go out today?"

"Meeeee!" Joli sang. "I want ice cream, and pizza, and fwenfwyz, and cookies, and—"

"You just want any junk you can lay your hands on," said Luna, tweaking the three-year-old's nose.

"Is that such a bad thing?" asked Ed as he passed through the kitchen. He was coming from the shop, allegedly to get his new automail looked at, but that was a lie as often as not. Nobody really bothered them about it.

"Hey, Edward, do you want to go out to eat tonight?" Luna asked.

"We're having fwenfwyz!" said Joli.

"_French_ _fries_," Luna enunciated.

"_Fwen fwyz_," Joli imitated Luna's intonation.

Ed laughed. "Try and make her say 'yellow' next."

"Lellow! Lellow!"

Luna tickled Joli, then looked at Ed. "So do you want to come?"

"Sure, I'll come," said Ed. "Want me to run down and tell Winry we're going?"

"Good idea," said Luna. "I'll rustle up Meta and Alphonse and we'll be off."

* * *

"Hey, Win—"

"Back already? Ed, we can't do it all day! I have stuff to get done, you know."

Ed laughed and grabbed her wrists so she dropped the screwdriver. "For the next two hours, you don't have a care in the world, got it?"

Winry glared. "I'm busy. It's not my problem that you're a wild animal."

Ed couldn't help but turn a little red around the ears for the analogy. "I'm not here about _that_!"

Winry tried to tug her arms away. "Then what do you want?"

Ed pulled her a few feet away from the main worktable and a few feet closer to the stairs, then released her and let her walk, however unwillingly. "Go upstairs and clean up."

"Why the hell would I want to do that? I've still got stuff to do!"

"Not for the next one hour, 59 minutes, and 12 seconds, you don't," he reminded her. "We're all going out to eat and I'm not going to listen to you worm your way out of it."

"I can't—"

"Ah, ah, a-ah!" Ed sang. "What did I just say?"

"Ed, this is ridic—"

"What did I just say?"

"You—"

"No."

"It's—"

"No."

"_Ed!_"

"Still no."

Winry halted at the foot of the steps and turned to face him. "What's gotten into you?"

Ed folded his arms across his chest. "It's just like I told you last night. I—"

"What are you talking about, last night?"

"Yeah, last night, you remember that? You fell into bed so tired you were barely coherent, remember?"

Winry screwed up her face, thinking. "I never talked to you, though."

"How would you know? You were the walking dead! That's my point exactly!"

"So what? I've pulled all-nighters before!"

"Not every day for weeks on end!" He excluded the implied _I'm worried about you _at the end of that sentence.

"Ed, I—"

"Ed I nothing. You're coming whether you like it or not. You're going to give yourself a break and eat a decent meal. You hear me?"

"Fine, fine," Winry conceded. "Stop yelling at me." She turned and started walking up the stairs, Ed following closely as if expecting her to bolt. "'Decent meal' my ass," she muttered, "I eat!"

"Yeah, like once every two days," said Ed. "If it were me I'd die."

"Only because you're used to eating a herd of freshly slaughtered cattle at every meal. You know, there are people in Xing—"

"—who subsist entirely on rice, so I've heard," said Ed dully.

"And they seem to get on okay," Winry continued her thought.

"You know, Li-… Gree-… well, whatever he calls himself these days—he eats like he's never eaten a meal in his life. And he's Xingese. So maybe the Xingese don't 'get on' as well as you think."

"He's an exception."

Ed rolled his eyes. "How convenient. My examples are always exceptions to your rules."

Winry shrugged. "Get better examples."

* * *

Luna knocked on the wall of the living room due to lack of an actual door. "Al—stop folding clothes like a mortgage for a little while and go out to eat with us."

Al looked glad for the excuse to stop working. "What's a mortgage?"

Luna had to force herself not to be a jerk and tell him it was a house loan. "A boring person who does mundane things all the time like file tax receipts and cut the lawn and feed the chickens and pair socks and pay the mortgage. Hence the term."

Al fell into step with her as she was headed towards Meta's room. "I've never heard that slang used before."

"I kind of came up with it myself."

"Really?"

Luna didn't bother to respond, preferring not to waste words.

She rapped loudly on Meta's door. "We're leaving. If you don't come out of there, you'll go hungry tonight, so you'd better get a move on."

Meta grunted loudly in acknowledgment.

"That was abrupt," Al commented as they went right to the next task, which was finding out where Joli had run off to in the five-odd minutes Luna had left her out of her sight.

"Abrupt seems to work better than timid."

Al was reminded of Luna hitting Ed with her notebook at the train station. "You're terribly practical, aren't you?"

"If you mean I know how to use whatever tactic works, then yes, I am."

"How Machiavellian of you."

"I'll take that as a compliment." She raised her voice: "JOLI! Where are you?"

"Right here!" she called from the living room they had both just left. "I color a picture, Mom!" She had come up with a system for not being able to pronounce anyone's name: She was Jo-jo, Meta was Sissy, Ed and Al were Brother, and Luna and Winry were Mom. (Not "Mommy." "Mom.")

"You colored a picture?" Luna repeated apprehensively, speeding to a run to get into the living room and see just what Joli had colored.

When Luna and Al got there, Winry and Ed were already there, having just ascended the stairs and heard what Joli had said. The child in question had found a pencil and one of Pinako's automail manuals.

"No!" Winry screamed, diving for it like a precious jewel. "That's Grandma's book! You can't have it!" She snatched the book and the pencil and looked like she had been about to erase the vandalism when she finally looked and saw what the graffiti was. She stared at it for a few seconds, then laughed.

"What's funny?" asked Al. Luna went to pick up Joli, who looked upset to have her drawing taken away so rudely.

"She drew—" Winry giggled— "she drew—" Winry couldn't stop herself— "she drew—" Winry could hardly breathe for laughing— "she drew—" Unable to speak, she thrusted the book in Ed's direction, since he was closest.

Ed laughed a little too, but not as much as Winry. "Ironic."

"Why, what is it?" asked Al, reaching for the book.

Ed handed it over to let his brother look.

"She drew—" Al began, and trailed off, breaking into a smile. "Do you think there was any way she could have known what the book she was drawing on was about?"

Ed shrugged. "Not likely."

"What's that supposed to be?" asked Luna, looking over Al's shoulder. "Looks like she attempted to trace her hand. What's so funny?"

"Note the way the joints are connected," said Al, his finger hovering over the lines, drawing invisible circles to make Luna focus on what he was looking at.

"I don't understand," said Luna. "Jo-jo, what did you draw?"

Joli was exuberantly proud of herself. "I color a automail like Mom!"

* * *

Later that evening, after dinner at Lucy's of course, the big kids met up for another discussion. As it was most evenings, on that night's agenda was Meta. Tonight and yesterday had been a change, actually, since the parent-teacher conference had shed some new light on the situation.

The main topic of discussion was Ms. Pomme's request that Ed sit in on a class the following week. Since it was Sunday night, this was final decision time.

"Of course, the only reason I didn't say no right then and there was because I wanted to keep our options open," said Ed. "I really don't think there's anything that can be learned by sitting in on that class that we can't figure out by watching how she acts at school."

"The teacher is genuinely concerned," said Winry. "It reflects poorly on our guardianship skills if we don't at least humor her."

"Then you sit in on a dull fifth-grade class and tell me how it goes," said Ed.

"She offered it to you and you only. She doesn't know the whole story, so it wouldn't make sense for me to come. It has to be you."

"Man, if I'd known volunteering to go to the stupid conference was going to be this much of a hassle, I would have made the Tick do it." (Calling Luna "Tick" had gradually become a fond—or at least begrudgingly respectful—nickname, and was no longer Ed's way of putting Luna down.)

Luna laughed falsely. "You're a riot."

"I don't think you should go, Brother," said Al. "I don't know, but this lady just doesn't sit right with me. Why should she want you to come into class? As far as she knows, you babysit Meta every day. So what makes her think class will be any different?"

"Maybe she just thinks differently than you," said Winry, "and that makes perfect sense to her."

"You might be seeing shadows where there are none," Luna told him.

"What I'd really like to talk about is this name change thing," said Ed. "It seems like Meta is trying to get rid of her identity. Doesn't that set anybody's alarm bells ringing?"

Everyone else nodded.

"What are we really supposed to do about it, though?" asked Winry. "It's not like we can just forbid her to call herself Melinda. We can't really stop her."

"It would be foolish to try," said Luna. "I think the only thing we can really do is keep a close watch on her. We can't change the little things like that, but we can definitely keep our eyes peeled for anything destructive."

"Definitely," Al agreed.

"I wish someone had given me such good advice," said Winry, "back when a pair of idiots decided to bring their mother back from the dead."

* * *

**French fries... Machiavelli... aargh, don't think too hard about it. But the mom thing is cute, right? My sisters call every female over the age of twelve "Mom." Including me. That's where the idea came from.  
**


	33. Run

**It's June 10! No more school! Wheeeee~! Here's your chapter! Thanks for waiting!**

* * *

"Do you ever feel like you're chasing after something that you can't really see, only sense that if you got your fingers around it, everything would make sense?"

Al regarded his palms as if the answer to Luna's thought-provoking question was inscribed thereupon. "I used to, but not anymore. Why? Do you feel that way?"

Luna was silent, staring across the darkened fields that stretched to infinity. The night made the green grasses look blue. "I think so. I think I'm searching for something."

"What are you searching for?"

"Well if I knew, I would go get it, wouldn't I?" Luna gave Al a look, then turned her eyes away again. "I have to run, I think."

"Why? Where are you going?"

"No, not in that sense." Unexpectedly, Luna vaulted over the wooden fence separating the fields from the roads and did exactly as she had promised: ran.

"Why are you leaving?" she heard Al call out.

"Why aren't you coming?" she called back. Soon enough, over the sound of her own breathing and heartbeat and the grass rustling as she plowed through it, Luna heard him fall into step with her. Al seemed to have a much easier time keeping up with Luna's pace than she had setting it.

"Where are you going?" he asked, his voice as even as it had been when they were casually ambling down the road.

Luna took notice of his pronoun use. "We'll find out when we get there."

"Where is there?"

"Anywhere!" Luna laughed, exhilarated, and sped to a pace she knew she couldn't keep, but the exertion felt good after doing household chores all day.

Luna ran as fast as her legs could take her and then some.

Just a little farther—

her lungs were on fire—

farther—

farther—

she would run till she collapsed if she could manage it—

farther—

farther—

farther—until Al said:

"Stop."

Luna halted immediately, stuck it, and waited until her balance caught up with her momentum. Then she dropped to the grass and stretched out, listening to her heartbeat thudding on.

"Why did we stop?" Luna panted.

"Listen to your breathing! I thought you were going to have an asthma attack or something."

"Is that all? I'm still good," she said, getting up.

"Lie back down," Al ordered. "Remember the rule?"

Oh, right. She wasn't allowed to overwork herself, and Al had the final say. "I didn't know just running off excess steam was under your jurisdiction, too."

"It does if I hear you panting like that," said Al, his voice betraying his concern.

Luna _hmm_ed and silence ensued.

When the conversation started again, both spoke simultaneously.

"Are you—"

"Why did—"

Each stopped short.

"You first," said Al.

"No, you," said Luna. "I insist."

"Okay," said Al. "I was going to ask, 'Are you happy?'"

"Yeah, I suppose," Luna shrugged. "What exactly do you mean?"

"It's stupid, I guess, but..." Al sighed. "I don't know. It just seems to me that you're not happy here. It seems like you were happier when you lived with your mom and dad, when we used to meet in the evenings. It seems to me that the girl with the lunchbox full of swordfish sandwiches, who wrote poems about goats and burning buildings, is gone. The girl I see now works harder than anyone to save the remnants of a broken family that isn't hers, and while we definitely appreciate everything you've done—and do— I worry that you're not being true to yourself. Hence the question, are you happy?"

Luna didn't hesitate: "Yes." So much so.

"So... why the personality changes?"

"Before I answer, would you answer mine?"

Al propped himself up on his elbow to look at her. "What was yours?"

"Are we friends?" Luna asked.

"Aren't we?" he asked in response.

"The why don't you say we?"

"...What?"

"Earlier, when we were running, you didn't ask, 'Where are we going?' You asked, 'Where are _you_ going?' As if I'm somehow separate from you even when we're together. That's not the first time you've done it, either. Why do you say you? Why don't you say we?"

Al gave it real thought. "For the same reason you call me Alphonse in front of other people."

_I doubt it,_ she thought. "I see," she said.

"So now you want to know why I'm not the same as I was when we first met."

"Yes."

Luna chose her words purposefully and spoke slowly to impart her full meaning. "When you first met me, I was unhappy. I didn't have a friend in the world but my imagination, and I spent most of my time shuffling between the hostile environment outside my home and the hostile environment in it." She sat up and crossed her legs lotus style, facing Al. "Now, I don't have to avoid home and I don't have to see my mother and father. I have responsibilities now and I feel like I'm making a difference. I am happy. I'm happier than I've ever been."

"As long as it's not because you're sad..." said Al after thinking it over. "I guess..." He trailed off.

"What?" Luna prompted.

"I guess... I guess..." Al sat up, rested his arms on his knees, and propped his chin on his folded arms. "I guess I kinda miss the way you were."

"I can't imagine why," Luna said darkly.

"Don't be negative. You were really interesting."

"Do I bore you now, then?" she teased.

His eyes widened. "No! I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant," she interrupted. "I don't think you quite got what I meant, though."

"Oh?"

"When I first met you, Al, I was a really ugly person on the inside. I was the only person who didn't hate me, and I resented that more than you can imagine. But now, I don't feel like I'm holding a grudge against the world. I don't have any reason to."

"I never know you felt that strongly," Al whispered, entranced.

"I hated everyone. It was miserable," said Luna, softer still.

"Even me?"

"At first," she admitted.

Al looked injured.

"Not for long, though," she said quickly, reacting to his reaction. "Look, the person you met in the road isn't me! That person didn't care what happened to you, or if she ever saw you again! That person was selfish and arrogant and she wouldn't have given you a second glance if you were the only boy in Amestris! That person didn't love you!"

Silence rang out deafeningly.

"...What?"

Luna looked horrified. "I... I didn't mean to say it like that.... I- I- I- I'm sorry!" She stumbled to her feet and backed up, eyes locked on Al, who was frozen.

"You... you..." Al squeaked, "...what?"

"Aaah... haah..." Luna voiced incomprehensibly, swaying a little, then she found her senses again and bolted.

"Luna—!" Al scrambled to his feet and gave chase. "Wait!" He was a much more powerful runner than her, and he quickly caught up. Unthinkingly, Al grabbed her wrist, meaning to pull Luna to a stop, but accidentally tripped her.

"Ah, crap—Luna, I'm sorry!"

Luna made no movement to rise, merely stayed down, her hands still splayed in the position she had caught herself, and stared at the dirt and bent grass below her, watching the falling droplets of warm salt water as they sank into the former and beaded on the latter.

"Luna?"

She heard him, but didn't respond. Al dropped the hand he had been holding out to her when he realized she did not intend to get up.

It was then that his eye caught the shuddering of her shoulders and realized what was happening.

He knelt next to her and stared at her, darkly fascinated; he had never seen her cry before. _This must be really important to her,_ he thought. "Luna." He reached for her.

Before Al could touch her, Luna flinched, and his hand hesitated. She sat up then, and tried and failed to wipe her face. Tears kept on coming. "I'm sorry," she mumbled. "Sorry, sorry."

Al gave her a minute to attempt to regain control first. Then, "Why would you run away? What did I do?"

Luna couldn't believe the pain in his voice. "I didn't mean to tell you that. I never wanted to feel like you were... pressured to like me. I wanted to have just one friend, one friend, _one_... who wasn't alienated by me... but I just..." she was losing it again, "just... just... just... ruined... everything... I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Look at me," Al whispered. Speaking at normal volume seemed too loud now.

Luna didn't move.

"Look at me," he said again, more insistently. "Please."

Luna wiped her face to try to make herself look seminormal, then met his eyes unwillingly.

"Was is that you thought I would... yell at you or something?"

"No, no," Luna shook her head, "no, not that. I just... I didn't want to face you?" She was uncertain of the answer herself. Another impossibility. Luna _always_ knew what she wanted.

"So you ran away."

Luna looked down. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I've only made it worse, haven't I? I'm sorry." She brushed the tears from her cheeks with the side of her hand, then glared at the moistness on her hand. "Damn it, I can't stop..."

"Look at me," Al reminded her. She looked. "Do I look angry?"

"No."

"Do I look like I've been alienated?"

She hesitated. "Not... really..."

"Do I look like someone you would want to run away from?"

Luna choked up and dropped her eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so... sorry..."

Al took her chin and lifted it so she had to meet his eyes. "Do I look like I want to be run away from?"

She couldn't answer for crying.

Al put his arms around her. "No, I don't," he answered his own question. "I don't know how to be in love," he admitted. "I just know that seeing you running away from me hurt. And I don't want you to do it again. Okay?"

"Okay..." she whispered. "I'm sorry."

"And I don't want you to say sorry. There's nothing to be sorry for. Okay?"

"Yes. But..."

"What?" he prompted when she hesitated.

"Aren't you... I mean, doesn't this change things?"

"Not if you don't want it to," he promised.

* * *

_You're so lucky that no one's noticed yet,_ said Eli. _This can't last, Meta. Or should I say, "Melinda"? _

"Don't call me that," Melinda whispered as she stared at the bottle contemplatively. "The only reason I changed my name was to get away from you."

_Isn't the alcohol enough?_

"You shut up."

_I have to say as much as possible before you drink me away. _

"I'll do it if you don't shut up."

_You'll do it anyway. _

"Fair enough." Having learned a few things about drinking, Melinda no longer sucked it straight from the bottle. That was a hangover in the making. And nobody ever noticed a missing glass anyway.

_You would know._

"Shut _up,_" she ordered.

Nope, nobody noticed a missing glass. In fact, they didn't seem to notice much at all.

_It's because they think you're above drinking._

"Their problem, not mine." Melinda poured herself her first glass of the evening, wondering what the big kids really thought was going on when she woke up every morning throwing up. It was a wonder they let her go to school.

_They probably think you're faking it somehow. _

"No, I think they think I'm just trying to stick it out and be tough. They think I'm some kind of 'survivor.'"

_That would sound beautiful on a postcard._

"Fuck you."

_Language, my dear little sister, language!_

"Why do you get meaner and meaner the longer you're in my head?" Melinda asked in response to his sarcastic tone.

_You're going insane, _he said matter-of-factly.

"Shut the hell up, okay!" Melinda drank down the contents of the glass and became Meta again. At least Eli was silent.

* * *

"Hey, Lindy! Lindy, Lindy, Lindy, c'mere!" Syiera waved her hands around like she was landing an aircraft.

Ashley elbowed her overexcited friend. "Lindy, you look pale," she observed. "Are you feeling okay?"

Melinda groaned and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands. Her friends were headaches.

_So is the hangover._

"No, no," said Meta, "I'm fine. So what's got Syiera so excited?"

"Be_cause_!" Syiera squealed. "It's Tricia's birthday on Saturday! She's turning ten! Aren't you excited about the surprise party? _I_ am!"

Ashley rolled her eyes. "That's because it was your idea."

"I know! I got the idea because of Allison Mirach's party over the summer—"

"You hate Allison," said Ashley.

"I know, but who ever said that means she can't have a huge birthday bash?" asked Syiera. "Anyway, her dad has been a HUGE help in setting it up. But you guys CAN'T let anything slip, okay?"

Ashley tapped Syiera's shoulder with her fist. "Sy, you're the worst liar of all of us."

"I'm not THAT bad!" she protested.

"...Surprise party?" Melinda repeated belatedly.

"Shh—here she comes!"

Tricia trudged to the group (they always met in the same place in front of school in the mornings) looking forlorn. "Guys, bad news. My dad says I can't have a birthday party this year. We can't afford it since Mom... well, you know what's up with my mom. Dad says I'll get a couple presents, but nothing special. And I'm not allowed to have any friends over that day."

"Oh, really?" Syiera covered her mouth with her hand. "How terrible!" She giggled a little.

Ashley tugged on Syiera's left pigtail to shut her up. "That sucks. Well, maybe better luck next year?"

Tricia sighed. "Hopefully."

"Hey," said Ashley, changing the subject before Syiera burst out laughing, "so did anyone get the math homework?"

"Not me," said Melinda, who hadn't even attempted it.

"It's a new subject," said Tricia. "We're not really expected to get it on the first try. The Pomme will only expect us to have tried it."

"You know what my mom says about mathematics?" Syiera began.

"Does it have anything to do with her ridiculously anti-male feminist outlook?" Ashley anticipated.

"Wow! Yes! My mom says math is a convention invented by men to confuse the women of a long time ago so that—"

"So that Ye Olde Uneducated Ladies couldn't voice their opinions freely?" Tricia guessed.

"No, actually—"

"Sy, we've heard it all before. You don't need to tell us. We know your mom is crazy," said Ashley.

"My mom's not_ crazy_!" Syiera argued, stamping her foot comically.

* * *

"Ed!" Winry yanked the pillow out from under Ed's head only to throw it at him with as much force as a pillow would allow. "Wake up!"

"Whaddahelfor?" he mumbled into the mattress.

Winry was in the midst of collecting all the dirty laundry that had accumulated on the floor of their room in the past week. It added up quickly since Ed never bothered with it and Winry never seemed to have time to. "You need to move it. You're going to pay a visit to the school, aren't you?"

Ed gave an exaggerated groan. "Man, I do have to do that today, don't I?" He scratched his head and wished he had remembered to take the ponytail out last night. "Hey, why're you wearing my clothes?" he asked after taking a better look at her. Indeed, she had donned a pair of his boxers, and though the black shirt was fairly generic, it looked like it was his as well.

"I couldn't find anything else on short notice," said Winry, unapologetic, as she attempted to balance the pile in one hand while picking up more clothes with the other. "And your clothes are more comfortable than mine, actually. Looser."

"I see," said Ed sarcastically. "It never occurred to you that I also need to wear my clothes?"

"You have more clothes than I do anyway. Most of my stuff is still in Lior, remember?"

"Yeah, so I've heard. You really ought to have that stuff shipped down."

Winry sighed as she picked up a shirt and two more fell out of her arms. "I know. It makes me nervous thinking about having someone I don't know in my shop, though, you know?"

Ed threw the blankets away and went over to Winry, then plucked a cleanish shirt and pants out of her pile of laundry destined for the wash, shrugging at her when she raised her eyebrows. "So go up to Lior yourself, then," he suggested.

"It's not that simple," she said, rolling her eyes.

"I don't see why it shouldn't be."

"It's just not, okay?" She didn't want to explain about Charles, or the several other various problems she had encountered in Lior in her brief stint there. "I don't want to..." she tried to think of a sensible excuse on the spot. "...To take the train," she said finally."

"Don't want to take the train? How the hell else are you going to get all the way to Lior?" Ed shot her a look while changing. "On foot? By mule? Paragliding?"

"I don't want to be reminded of what happened last time I took the train, _okay_?" That seemed like a sound enough reason, provided Ed believed she was capable of such kind of newly formed phobia.

"I see." He seemed to buy it. "Uhh, well, look, I have to run to the school, but thanks for waking me up before I missed the whole school day, and we'll figure something out later, okay?"

"Sure, sounds good," said Winry.

When Ed had gone, Winry slid to the floor and rubbed her temples. This lie was not going to be easy to keep up with. She had been lucky Ed was distracted today, otherwise he might have asked questions. He would probably ask questions later, though, and then what?

Ugh, what a mess!

And Charles had no idea she'd just saved his life.


	34. Childish

_Has it really been so long since I was here?_ Ed wondered as he walked the familiar halls of his old primary school. The school was set up simply, with one main hall with seven doors on each side.

The whole thing was shaped like a capital letter I, with the stem of the I being the main hall, the bottom of the I as the administration office (this was where Ed had had to go to present his identification and get a visitor's pass: not that he needed it; the old ladies at the office still remembered him) and the top end of the I was the electives department, home of the music room, the art classes, and the physical education facility, though the latter was currently being renovated and was therefore not in use.

Besides the new fifth-grade teacher Ms. Pomme's arrival, replacing the teacher who had died in the Fever that summer (that one was not one of Ed's former instructors), Ed's old kindergarten teacher had died of her cancer last year, his fourth-grade teacher had retired sometime during the year when he had undergone the automail surgery (she had moved to Creta to live by the ocean), and his sixth-grade teacher was retiring after this year (her husband had died during the Fever, and her son and his wife were moving in to take care of things).

Resembool Primary was simple and small, only two classrooms to a grade, except kindergarten which only needed one (however, due to the challenges of teaching kids that age, the class was co-taught), while the fourteenth room was the fabled teachers' lounge.

Before he went to Ms. Pomme's room, Ed poked his head in that forbidden room and was disappointed but unsurprised to find a few stiff-looking gray couches, a single-burner stove bearing an aging kettle; an icebox, a few cabinets, and a single table in the center of the room, the wood pockmarked in its old age.

Ed left the teachers' lounge feeling self-satisfied. Even if nothing else went right today, he would still be able to say he'd done something he'd been afraid of doing when he was still a little kid.

After the childish thrill of disobedience had waned, Ed made himself into a grown-up again and headed back up the hall, stopping in front of the door to Ms. Pomme's classroom. From his visit on Friday, he had gathered that the newbie teacher hadn't yet figured out that she was, in fact, permitted to affix objects such as posters and student works onto the wall outside her classroom. Because of this, hers was the only strip of wall in the building that wasn't covered in finger-paintings of stick families (kindergarten), macaroni art (first grade), about seventeen zillion poorly cut-out leaves and apples heralding fall (second grade) illustrations of some stupid story they'd read in class (third grade), half-rhyming attempts at limericks and haikus, (fourth grade), poorly punctuated reports about everything under the sun from volcanoes to alchemy to how to cook a turkey (fifth grade), and the sixth-grade mural.

Every year the traditional job of the sixth-grade class was planning, budgeting, designing and painting a mural in their section of hallway. On the opposite wall to the mural was a huge wall of framed pictures depicting the murals of previous years which had been painted over. They had been dutifully taken pretty much ever since cameras were invented, and before that, an artist had created a beautiful scaled-down imitation of the mural. Obviously, not all of these pictures were up; only the last twenty-five years were represented. The others were neatly archived in a scrapbook which had lasted since even before the fire years ago. Kids took the mural dead seriously; often the planning was started in the fifth grade, or, in the case of especially ambitious students, the fourth grade!

Last year's mural was still up since it was still so early in the year, and the kids had apparently decided that their legacy was best left in neon glitter butterflies.

Ed stared at the current mural, then turned to the wall and looked at the picture of the one his own sixth-grade class had made. It was an eagle soaring away over a field of flowers. Every student had chosen his or her own special flower and had either painted it or had someone with better art skills paint it. Ed recalled making Winry paint his daylilies, because the mural had been painted not a month before the human transmutation, and he'd had neither the time nor patience for flower-painting. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what Winry had chosen for her flower, and he made a note to ask her.

He had been about to look at the photograph of the mural for Al's sixth-grade class, then he remembered that Al had had no part in the making of his class's mural, which was of stars with the names of the students on each one hovering over a field of grazing horses facing the rising sun.

The fingers of Ed's metal hand swept over the frame of the picture of his class's mural, and he allowed himself only a moment of remembrance before shaking away the melancholy and heading to his destination.

Since Ms. Pomme was in the middle of lecturing the students about their newest unit in science (chemistry, if Ed remembered correctly, then it was intro to alchemy for a few weeks in December before winter break, and after the New Year it was life sciences for the remainder of the year) Ed decided to forgo knocking so he didn't interrupt her. Silently he eased the door open and gave Ms. Pomme a little wave. She stumbled over her sentence, distracted. Ed gave her a questioning look, which she responded to by nodding, glancing significantly at the three vacant seats in the back of the classroom, and continuing with her lecture with no further pauses.

"Who're you?" demanded the kid Ed sat down next to.

"Name's Ed. …Elric," he added as an afterthought.

"I've heard'a you, I think. Why're you here?"

"Your teacher invited me to sit in," Ed explained. "Why are _you_ here?

"Uh... this is my class," he said, like it was a question, not understanding the quip. He turned away and continued what he had been doing before Ed sat down, which was staring at a red-haired girl with pigtails sitting right in front of Meta.

Ed gave the kid a speculative look. "Robert, or Eric?" he asked.

"I'm Max," said the kid, giving him an intrigued look. "How d'you know my brothers?"

"No shit," said Ed. "Old Jack's sons keep getting bigger and bigger. Sam's probably all married and moved out now, isn't he?"

"He married Lizzie Pulsifer last summer," Max answered. "You know my dad?"

"Well, don't look so surprised," said Ed. "He's the only guy in this town who can turn out edible-looking carrots and potatoes in this soil. My mom used to send me over to your place all the time. I remember when Eric was only two years old, before you or Patrick were ever even thought of. You're the spitting image of Jack Ingalls, you know."

Max looked despondent at the news. "Don't remind me."

"Don't like your father?" Ed could empathize.

"No, nothin' like that. I only don't like the family business." He sighed.

Now that was something Ed couldn't empathize with. For all he'd hated his father, they'd both ended up in the same line of work. "How come?"

"'Cause—"

"Ingalls, don't distract our guest," said Ms. Pomme sharply. Max gave her a hateful glare and slouched defiantly in his seat, but shut his mouth.

"Because?" Ed prompted in a whisper.

"Because there's no money in _potato farming_," he whispered back.

"Sounds like you have a dilemma on your hands," Ed commented.

Max didn't respond, but changed the subject. "How come you're here?"

Ed pointed at Meta, who was slouching in the seat with her head propped up on one hand. "See that girl there?"

Max sighed. "That's Lindy. She's pretty, but mean. She don't talk much. But if you say som'm about it, her friends'll tear you apart. I made that mistake on the first day of school."

"Who are 'Lindy's' friends?" Ed asked.

"Syiera, Ashley, and Tricia," said Maz, pointing at the redhead he had been staring at earlier, then at a brunette who was doodling on her notebook, and a blonde with blue streaks in her hair. "Also, Sunny sometimes hangs out with them, but not so much since Sunny also is friends with Jessy and Allison, and Sy hates those two, so Ash and Trish don't talk to them neither."

"You seem to know an awful lot about it," Ed observed. He knew for a fact he hadn't known this much about the girls in class when he had been in school.

"Well, I've known 'em all since kindergarten," Max shrugged. "'Cept Lindy. She moved here last year from the city. I don't know which one."

"What else do you know about her?" asked Ed.

Max thought about it. "Um, well, I know she has a big brother named... uh, Ethan, I think. And I know her first name's actually Meta. But if you call her that, she'll hit you. Jacob Andrews tried it last week. He didn't tell on her 'cause he didn't want anyone to know he got a black eye from a girl, so he made me promise to tell everyone that I punched him."

"Did it work?" Ed asked. "Did everyone believe you?"

"Yeah," said Max. "Lindy didn't tell 'cause she don't talk ever. But then everyone thought I was mad at Jake, so we had to fake like we made friends again."

"Hmm." Ed fell silent and allowed the kid to talk.

"Well, now that I think about it, she didn't used to be so quiet. She changed over the summer, I guess. You know, Rob grew like eight inches taller over the summer! Mom said it was because he ate all his green beans, but I said I highly doubt that, Mom. But that's not the same as changing personalities, is it? Meta didn't get taller, she got quieter. Hey, Ed-guy, d'you think something mighta happened to her over the summer that made her be different? That's all I can think of for reasons."

"You don't know about the Erlichs?" Ed questioned.

"I don't know much about her. Nobody really knows much about her. She don't talk."

"So you've said," said Ed. He then explained Meta's situation in brief, referring to Meta as "Melinda."

Max looked shocked.

"Wow, and she came back to school, even?" he asked. "My mom and dad didn't make me and Rob and Eric and Sam go back to school when Pat drowned when I was in kin'ergarten."

"It wasn't like she was forced to go," said Ed. "She went of her own volition."

"What's that mean?"

For a second, Ed had forgotten he was talking to a ten-year-old. "Willpower. Motivation. Desire to do something."

"How d'you know so much about Lindy, Ed-guy?"

"I live with her. I help take care of her and her little sister." Ed decided to keep it vague so he wouldn't contradict his own story later.

"Then why were you asking about Lindy if you live with her?" asked Max, frowning.

"She doesn't talk to me much either."

"Oh." Max fell silent and became lost in thought, gazing blankly at Meta. "Lost her brother..."

"What are you thinking about?"

"I was thinkin' maybe I should talk to her," said the boy, running his fingers back through his mop of thick black hair.

"Couldn't hurt," said Ed. "You do know a little more about losing a brother than most people, don't you?" He still remembered when the four Ingalls sons—Samuel, Robert, Eric, and Maxmilian—had been five.

Max slouched and stared at the chalkboard. "Yeah, guess so."

* * *

"...And as such, chemistry is one of the most important skills you will learn in your school career. Especially if you want to go on to college, or if you want to enter pretty much any scientific field, you need to pay attention."

Syiera passed a folded note back to Melinda: "And what if you DoN'T want to go to colege or sientific feilds? no home work then I gess!"

Melinda stared at the note, corrected Syiera's mistakes with her pen, wrote a sarcastic "hahaha" below it, then handed it back to her.

"Watch this," Ed whispered to Max as he folded a piece of paper into a familiar shape.

"That design won't fly straight," said Max confidently.

"It's all in the creasing," Ed responded with equal surety as he watched Ms. Pomme carefully, waiting for his chance, which he got when she turned her back to the class to grab a stack of bright pink papers from her desk. Ed let his creation fly.

"Nice throw!" Max complimented.

Melinda whirled around when she felt something hit her shoulder. When she saw the offending object on the floor and realized what it was, she picked it up and glared at it.

"Lindy, did you see, somebody just threw a—" Tricia began, twisting in her chair to see where it had landed, only to realize that it was Melinda who had been hit.

"Hey, who threw that?" Syiera demanded, her accusatory glare going right to Allison.

Melinda looked to the back of the classroom and immediately saw the culprits: a solemn Max Ingalls and an openly laughing... _Ed Elric_?

"What are you doing here?" Melinda mouthed, enraged.

"I CANNOT LIP-READ," Ed mouthed back.

Melinda narrowed her eyes at Ed, who remained unapologetic, and made a gesture indicating 'I'm watching you.' She then crumpled up the paper airplane and lobbed it back, aiming at Ed's head. It missed widely.

"Erlich!" Ms. Pomme exclaimed. "I can't believe you would throw a paper ball at poor Mr. Ingalls! What has he ever done to you?"

Melinda didn't respond.

"Go pick up what you just threw and put it in the garbage," Ms. Pomme commanded.

Melinda glared at her defiantly and didn't move an inch.

"Do you really want to lose your green marker so early in the day?" Ms. Pomme threatened.

"Go ahead," said Melinda sarcastically. "In fact, why don't you just take all of those _stupid painted popsicle sticks_ out at one time and save yourself two more trips? And then you can rant on for an hour and a half about exactly how many _joules of work_ you've saved yourself. Not great _exercise,_ but you can always lose all that weight with another _crash diet_, right, fatass? Everything works out for _you_, doesn't it? _Wowsers_, it's already shaping up to be a wonderful day, isn't it, _Regina_?"

Ms. Pomme turned about seven shades of red, then, without another word, went to her desk and pulled out her pad of the dreaded pink referral slips. She efficiently clicked her pen against her collarbone, then started furiously scribbling. "Erlich, grab your books and come up here," she said icily as the other children started to buzz with "ooh"s and "she's in trouble"s. Melinda's friends were giving her sympathetic looks and saying things like "She had it coming to her anyway."

Ed stood up and went to the front of the room. When Ms. Pomme tore off the pink paper and handed it to Melinda, Ed took it from her. "How many of these has she gotten this year?"

"Three," said Ms. Pomme.

"I see," said Ed, then he led her out of the classroom by her wrist. When they were alone in the hall, Ed glared down at her. "Why have these not been getting home?"

"They have," said Melinda. "Luna signs them."

"She hasn't told me, Winry, or Al about them, and I know for a fact that Luna never lies. You, on the other hand..." He trailed off threateningly.

"I swear, I'm not lying!"

"Then Luna is?"

"I don't know why she didn't tell you guys!"

_This would never have happened if—_

_I don't want to hear it from _you, Melinda thought viciously at her brother.

Ed grabbed her chin and forced her to look him in the eyes. He stared like that for a few seconds before shoving the referral in her palm and pushing her roughly in the direction of the office. "Move your ass to the office and get your slip signed," he ordered. "This is insanity, all of it!"

_Oh, don't get me started on INSANITY, _said Eli. _You..._

"...never in my life have I desired to hit a child, but for you, girl, I can make an exception," Ed ranted as they walked. "For fuck's sake, did your brain dribble out of your ears this morning?"

_...probably hurt that poor woman's feelings,_ Eli continued. _Never in my life would I have done such a thing! And you neither, if I was alive! Honestly, Meta, what are you REBELLING against?_

Melinda was silent.


	35. Max's Mission

"It's almost eight," Luna announced to the inhabitants of the living room. "Is anyone planning on eating tonight?"

Al looked up from his place on the couch and shook his head. Ed didn't even bother to make eye contact as he paced the length of the room, but he did give the wall behind her a quite hateful glare.

"I don't think either of us are in the mood for food," Al translated Ed's vicious body language.

Luna sighed, hugging herself for a minute, then she jumped over the back of the couch like she was clearing a hurdle and sat on her knees a respectful distance away from Al. "Just because you're upset doesn't mean you should pass up food," she said, mainly aiming this at Ed.

"Obviously you don't know them well enough," said Winry as she stood in the doorway. She was holding her grease-coated hands in the air out in front of her. "Luna, when we were doing the washing earlier today, did you see if any of the shop cloths got cleaned? I could really use some."

"I think some got mixed in with the bath towels," said Luna, getting up from the couch again even though she had just sat down.

"I don't know what you see in her," Ed grumbled as soon as the girls were out of sight. "Pushy nag."

"Don't take this out on her, Brother, she hasn't done anything wrong."

"She didn't tell us about the referrals."

"And does that come as so much of a surprise, with the way you're reacting?" Al waved his arm widely at the path Ed was pacing. "The referrals aren't the reason you're angry, and you know that as well as I do."

"It's just FRUSTRATING!" Ed burst out, making a gesture indicating that his frustration was as large as Atlas's burden. "She just lashes out at whoever she feels like with no regard for consequences. How do you DISCIPLINE a kid like that? You CAN'T! It's impossible! Ugh, I _hate_ this kid!"

"Doesn't it sound a little like Meta is taking after y—"

"Don't you dare say it!" Ed cut him off. "I was a different case and you know it."

"Still, the parall—"

"I don't want to hear about parallels! I already KNOW all that, Al! That doesn't make this any less irritating!"

Al sighed. "I know how you feel. I'm irritated too."

"You don't look all that irritated," Ed observed.

"Why, because I'm not screaming and tearing my hair out? It's called self-discipline, Brother, and you have none."

Ed narrowed his eyes at his little brother. "I'm not in the mood for your little clever quips, okay, so cut it out."

Al shrugged. "Okay."

The brothers fell silent as Ed continued pacing. 

_What are we going to do about her?_

"So..." said Al after a while.

"So?" said Ed.

"_So_... did anything else happen at school? I mean before Meta's outburst. Did you get a chance to talk to any of the kids like you said you wanted to?"

Ed snapped his fingers in sudden recall. "Oh! You know, I did have a very interesting conversation with one of the kids, I think the name will be familiar: Ingalls?"

"Oh, one of the Ingalls boys was in her class? Was it Rob? Or Eric?"

"Max, actually," said Ed. "He's gotten big."

"Max is in the fifth grade already?" Al repeated incredulously. "Wow, it's been longer than I thought!"

"I know, I was surprised too," said Ed. "Anyway, I talked to him a little before the incident occurred. He couldn't really tell me much we don't know, unfortunately."

"Hmm, well, that's no help," said Al. "Well, what about the teacher, did you get a chance to talk with her privately?"

"No," Ed sighed. "I was only there for an hour or so, really."

Al exhaled slowly, like air being pressed out of a down pillow. "Then all this was for nothing."

Ed fell silent and thought about it. "Oh!" he said unexpectedly. "There _was _one thing that happened, actually. Max and I did talk a little bit about Patrick, do you remember what happened to him?"

"Yes, the kid who drowned," said Al. "Mom wouldn't let us play by the river at all after that."

"Of course;" Ed raised his voice so that Winry could hear: "THE THING WITH THE _FROGS_ MIGHT HAVE HAD SOMETHING TO DO WITH OUR MOM FORBIDDING US TO PLAY BY THE RIVER WHEN WE WERE KIDS!"

"THE FROGS WERE MY FRIENDS!" Winry shouted downstairs. "IT'S NOT _MY _FAULT MOM HAD A CONNIPTION FIT WHEN ONE JUMPED OUT FROM MY POCKET WHILE SHE WAS DOING THE LAUNDRY!"

"WAS TOO," Ed called back. "WHAT KIND OF HORRIBLE PERSON _FORGETS_ THAT SHE BROUGHT A _FROG _HOME IN HER POCKET?"

"I WAS FOUR YEARS OLD!" came Winry's defensive reply. "AND IT'S FUNNY AS HELL!"

Al snorted. "The poor animals."

"DON' SAY BAD WORD, MOM!" Joli shouted from the kitchen.

"SORRY!" yelled Winry.

Ed and Al laughed.

* * *

Melinda couldn't get within a hundred feet of the school on Thursday before she was mobbed by her friends.

"Oh, Lindy!" Syiera shouted, throwing her arms around her friends. "You were suspended for THREE WHOLE DAYS! We were scared you weren't gonna come back at all!"

"We weren't scared of that," Ashley snorted. "They can't expel you for just mouthing off to the teacher, Sy."

"Well, _I _was scared of that!" said Sy, nodding vigorously as if agreeing with herself.

"Hey, girls, look who's coming over!" said Tricia, pointing behind Ash, who twisted to look.

"I bet he's gonna finally talk to you, Sy," said Ash excitedly. "You KNOW he's liked you forever!"

"He's not making eye contact with me, though," Syiera observed, frowning in confusion.

"I did hear from Sunny who heard it from Jacob that Max wants to talk with Lindy," said Trish helpfully.

"Me?" said Lindy, looking up for the first time to see Max Ingalls striding purposefully towards their group.

Sy elbowed Trish and Ash, and the girls made themselves scarce, leaving Lindy alone and somewhat pissed at their quick escape.

Max stopped directly in front of Lindy and took a deep breath. "Hi."

Lindy stared at him.

"I got a question for you, and your friends are all gone so you gotta give me a straight answer, 'kay?"

Lindy jammed her hands in her pockets and waited apprehensively.

"Why don't you talk to nobody? I mean, anybody? Loads'a people talk to you, and try to play with you and stuff, but you don't do nothin'. And you yell at Ms. Pomme and you ignore people sometimes and why do you do that?"

Lindy glared like she was looking through his very soul.

"I'm not leavin' 'til I get an answer," said Max, his dark eyes burning.

"Yes. Seven. To get to the other side. Purple. Coconut." Lindy took a breath. "Happy?"

"A _real_ answer," he repeated.

Lindy folded her arms across her chest unwelcomingly. "Then sucks to be you, 'cause you're not getting one."

When she tried to walk away, Max stuck his arm in her path and stepped around her so he was again standing in her way. "Is it 'cause your brother's dead?"

Lindy thought daggers and hellfire at him in silence.

"That's a stupid reason," said Max, correctly taking her silence for a 'yes.'

"You don't know what you're talking about," Lindy snapped, and again tried to get around him.

"No," said Max, again stopping her. "You don't know what YOU'RE talking about. You need'a stop assumin' you're the only one in the world who has'ta deal with pain. 'Cause you come off like a snobby... uh, snob. Yeah. You're not the only person in the world, okay? So just... stop bein' a jerk!"

Lindy shook his hand off of her forearm. "Shut up, okay? Honestly! What do _you_ know? You're just a stupid, inbred rural _hick_ who thinks he's taking the moral high road by trying to 'cure' me and it's not gonna work—so just get out of my face! Who do you think you are to walk up and start yelling at me about losing my brother when _you don't even know what it feels like_?"

"I know _exactly_ what it feels like!" he burst out, stopping Lindy cold. He exhaled and lowered his tone. He hadn't come with the intention of yelling at her. He was on a mission.

"Early spring, just around that time of the year when the rain and the melt'n snow from the mountains makes the river overflow: Pat and I was just playin'. Mom told us not to go farther'n the old beaver dam, so Pat and I decide'ta be wise guys and start playin' on top of it, since technic'ly we wasn't going FARTHER'n it. What we didn't bank on was it being so slippery. I lost my footin' and fell but caught my balance. The dam was really old and fallin' apart; it's not even really there anymore if you go look. When I fell, I knock over a few sticks that screwed the balance, just at the same moment as a bunch'a water come splashin' over the other side under Pat's feet. He slips, and the logs under his feet breaks away, right, and... the current jus'... jus' sweeps 'im right on by. I was too scared to jump in after 'im so... he drowned. It was... my fault." By the end of his story, Max had decrescendoed from a calm, impassive tone to a raw whisper.

Lindy stared at him, saddened but unable to produce an appropriate amount of empathy. "I don't get it," she said, scowling a little.

Max looked up from the ground, which he had been staring fixedly at until then. "What's not to get?"

"You're not sad."

He frowned at her. "Funny," he said sarcastically, "because I sure _feel_ like I'm sad."

"No," said Lindy, shaking her head. "You're not sad all the time. I mean, doesn't it hurt all the time? But you're not sad. It doesn't make sense."

For the first time, Max finally felt like he understood her. "Look, now i'n't exactly the best time to esplain," he said, glancing at the people around them as everyone started heading inside, "but if you meet me by the river tonight, I'll show you sum'm, 'kay?"

"What is it?" Lindy asked.

"Find me after dark, when all the stars has come out, when you can find the Fisherman and the Throne'a Serck-sees* and all'a the other bright ones, okay?" Max stepped back from her. The moment of understanding seemed to have passed as fleetingly as it had come.

* * *

*******Serck-sees = In case you didn't understand the spelling of his accent here, this is how Max pronounces Xerxes. Oh, give him a break! It's a tough word to say with a Resembool "ack-saynt"! Which, in case you haven't figured it out yet, is written as the equivalent of a Southern American accent. Why? Because it's the only one I can write for. Because I AM Southern... haha... I think I may have mentioned it before. And I play up my Southernness whenever possible, too, because as I've explained to my friends' great amusement, that when I'm married, I desperately want to be a naggy Southern fishwife. I want my husband to be the guy who passes up a night of drinking because "the wife'll kill me if I'm home late." I want him to be TERRIFIED of me. But at the same time, I want him to be as stubborn as Ed. I just like conflict. ^^ I think my boyfriends (don't get me STARTED on my love life, omigod I'll never shut up) will be suprised to find that they need not waste money on flowers or chocolate... Okay, maybe chocolate. But not because it's romantic. I just like chocolate. If he wants to please me, he can just buy me a candy bar. Haha. Okay, I'll shut up now, me and my fishwife fantasies...**

**Yeah, so am I the only one who's thinking that Max's "ack-saynt" kinda detracts from the impact of what he's "a-sayin'"? It bothers me that I can't NOT include it without taking away from his character. On the other hand, I'm very proud of his drawl... yeah, transcribing it is somewhat of a pain, but every time I read his speech I feel like his whole personality just comes together... God, it's so amazing! I don't know how to feel about it, exactly, because I both love it and hate it for different reasons. **

**And a note to readers who don't readily hear the accent in their head (aka, non-Americans): I didn't bother with it because it's implied by the rest of his speech, but "I" is "ah", "you" is "ya", and "your" is "yer". It didn't seem prudent for me to include those, and I thought it might be a little bit overkill to do so. There's a reason a lot of people can't understand Mark Twain... **

**PLEASE review! Lack of reviews makes Alias sad... D:  
**


	36. Misunderstanding

"Sooo?" Syiera sang when Melinda rejoined the group. "What haaappened? Anything innnteresting?"

"Nooothing," Lindy mimicked her tone.

"Why'd you talk for so long?" Ashley asked as Tricia was sitting on top of the desk behind her, braiding her hair into two long brown pleats.

"What'd he say?" asked Trish.

"Did he say anything about who he likes?" asked Ash. "Look at Sy, you know that's the only thing she cares about."

"He wasn't talking to me about that," said Lindy, borrowing Marina's seat for the time being and pulling it up next to the group.

Sy snapped her fingers and brought her hand down in an arc to show her disappointment. "Damn!"

Ash reached forward and patted Sy's arm without moving her head. "At least he's still not taken. You'll get your chance, Sy."

"So what _did _he talk to you about?" Trish asked as she was pulling a rubber band off of her wrist and tying Ash's first braid up. "Please, oh please, don't say somethin' boring like homework!"

"It didn't have anything to do with homework either," said Lindy stiffly.

"The braids look nice, Ash!" Sy complimented. "Trish, you should be a hairdresser when you grow up!"

"Ew, no way," said Trish, shaking her head vigorously. "Ashley and I've worked all'a this out already. She's gonna be an artist and I'm gonna be her agent and she'll make masterpieces and I'll get her in all the big art shows in Central and we'll both get rich!"

"Tell us what he DID say, then!" Ash demanded of Lindy. "You're not going to just make us guess all day, are you?"

"I thought your dad wanted you to get married and take over his farm," said Sy.

"Yeah, but that was before Emma was born," said Trish. "Now I can do whatever I want and Emma can get married and take over the farm, see how that works?"

"Lindy!" said Ash. "Say somethin'!"

Lindy was having trouble following both trains of thought at once, so she focused on Ashley. "Look, it wasn't that important, okay? Just forget about it."

Ash scowled. "It wouldn't be such a big deal if you would just tell me."

"Well, too damn bad," Lindy snapped.

"You shouldn't say bad words," said Tricia. "They make angels cry."

Lindy looked away. She didn't believe in angels.

Trish finished tying Ash's second braid and flung it over Ash's shoulder.

"Looks good, Trish," said Ash.

"Ooh, do Lindy next!" said Sy. "Lindy never does nothin' with her hair! I bet she'd be so pretty with a braid!"

"My hair is too short for a braid," said Lindy dismissively.

"It got a lot longer over the summer!" Sy argued.

"Let me braid it!" Trish begged. "Pleeeeeeeeeease?"

Lindy scoffed. "Oh, fine then, if it makes you happy."

Tricia came over to stand behind Lindy and started combing through Lindy's hair with her fingers. "Oh, you have really fine hair, don't you?" said Trish. "I'll only be able to do a single."

Lindy shrugged. She didn't care. It was around this point that Eli started speaking to her, so she zoned out of the conversation and became the scenery.

"I heard there's gonna be a new girl in our grade next week," said Ash. "I heard it from Lucy when I was at the diner with my family yesterday. Her name's Isabella, I think."

"When she comes to school, we need'a make friends with her and be really nice to her and stuff," said Sy. "We can't let Jessycah and Allison get to her first, okay? So be on the lookout!"

"God forbid Allison have any friends at all," said Ash dully.

"Hey guys, guess what?" Syiera exclaimed, forgetting the other topic immediately.

"What?" Tricia and Ashley asked simultaneously.

"I heard that the sixth-graders settled on their mural's theme this year! Brian Ryder told me the other day!"

"Oh?" said Trish. "What's their theme about?"

"They're doing clocks!"

"Clocks?" Ash repeated, snorting. "That's boring. Ours'll be way better than _clocks._"

"Why clocks?" asked Trish.

Sy shrugged. "Symbolicness, I guess. I think their real theme is like, 'there's no time like the present,' but they're doing it with clocks. And Brian told me they're going to do it like a wall of different clocks, you know, all with different times, I think."

Ash shook her head vigorously, her new braids flying. "That's gonna suck. We'll think of a way better theme than clocks."

"I hope we do something with landscapes," said Trish. "My two favorite murals on the Wall are the landscapes. Especially the four seasons one. And the stars with the horses. And the cityscape with the rain. Oh, and the flowers!"

"My favorite is the one they have up now!" Sy seemed to bounce a little as she said this. "I love the butterflies and the sparklies and everything!"

"My favorite is the surrealist one with the children and their backpacks climbing all over the boxes with different angles," said Ash. "I bet it took forever for them to make all the cubes look like they had different gravity on 'em."

"I don't like that one," said Sy, sticking her lower lip out. "It makes my eyes go all in circles."

"What's your favorite, Lindy?" asked Trish.

Lindy shrugged.

"That's not an answer!" Sy exclaimed. (Of course, exclamations were cheap to Syiera; any sentence that did not end in an exclamation mark was a wasted sentence in her book.) "Please! Tell us your favorite!"

Lindy shrugged again.

"You must have ONE that you like," Ashley insisted.

Lindy didn't say anything.

"Oh, you're no fun!" Sy complained.

"Your hair's done," Trish announced.

"Hmm, I don't know," said Syiera seriously. "Pulling the hair back makes her face look too harsh, doesn't it?"

"It's because she's so skinny," said Trish. "Honestly, girl, don't you eat?"

_She drinks,_ Eli said viciously.

"Of course," said Lindy. "Everyone eats."

"I know what to do," said Ashley. She reached for Lindy's face and slid a finger between her hair and her scalp, fishing an inch-wide section out from the braid. She did it on the other side, then played with the hair to make it frame her face. "Now you don't look so... uh, pointy."

"It looks perfect!" said Sy as she was fishing out a mirror from her backpack.

"It looks so cute!" said Trish.

"It looks mature," said Ash.

"No way," said Lindy when Syiera had handed her the mirror. Lindy tried to tuck the two free locks back into the braid, and when that didn't work, she stuck them behind her ears.

"Why?" asked Tricia.

"I don't care how cute or mature it looks," said Lindy. "I am _not_ going to let myself look like Edward Elric."

* * *

Maxmilian Ingalls was a fairly smart young man, or at least he thought so. He had the forethought to realize that he did not know what he was going to say, and that he was going to want to know that. He had sort of a general idea, of course—otherwise he would never have made such a bold suggestion to Lindy about meeting him tonight—but he hadn't put too much thought into it. There hadn't even been that much of a likelihood that she would accept in the first place. His father had explained this to him once, in a rare accidental moment of insight.

"Boy," he'd said, clapping his big, callused hand onto Max's shoulder with enough force to make him even shorter, "remember this, yeah? You don't bother t' count cards when you got a crap hand."

In other words, don't make complicated plans for the distant future when there's a fair chance the near future isn't going to happen like you want it.

But in this case, the near future was happening like he wanted it, and unfortunately he didn't know what he wanted of it.

Writer's block, for all intents and purposes.

As soon as he got home, Max dropped his school things beside the door and ran to the kitchen to see if there was any food to be stolen, but his mother was in there, so no dice. "Hey, Mom?" he said, realizing she might be of use.

His mother took an arbitrary glance at him as she was pulling tonight's casserole out of the oven. "How's it goin', honey? Have a good day at school?" To save time on memorizing which boy was which (every one of the Ingalls boys had the same color hair and general facial shape, which was why Max was always confused with his older brothers) his mother always called him 'honey' and his father always called him 'boy.'

Max hoisted himself up onto one of the counters and swung his legs. "Mom, can you help me with som'm?"

"'Z'it homework? I'm too busy to do that rah't***** now, honey. Ask one'a your brothers to help you." **(AN: "Rah't"="Right." It was tough figuring out how to spell it phonetically.)**

"No, it's not homework, Mom," said Max patiently.

After burning herself on the casserole dish, Max's mother stuck the side of her hand into her mouth, scowling and muttering a curse that Max pretended not to hear. "What is it then, hon?" she asked with her hand still in her mouth.

"Tonight, I'm s'posed'ta be meeting up with this girl, and I need help feggerin' out what'ta say to her."

His mother shook her head promptly and adamantly. "No way. You know the rule: Mom don't deal with girl problems. Period. Go ask your father."

"It's not a girl problem," Max argued.

"Is it a 'problem'?"

"Yeah..."

"Is it a problem about a girl?"

"Yeah, but—"

"Then it's a girl problem. Go see your father."

Max sighed loudly, then hopped down from the counter. "Where's Dad?"

"Out back with Hannah," she responded vaguely.

"Out back"could refer to anywhere within three acres of their house (after four or so acres away, it was considered "the fields"), so Max walked outside with no real idea of where he was going. It wasn't that hard to find his father and four-year-old sister once he was out there, since the way their farm had been designed made it easy to see everything that was going on in the lesser buildings from the view of the back porch. He saw Hannah first, sitting on one of the wooden beams that made up the bull's pen, then he caught sight of his father, ten yards away, by one of the old-fashioned water pumps (obviously, they had running water inside, but it was no use letting the pumps go to waste either), cleaning out a big pile of tin buckets in various sizes depending on their individual uses.

Max jogged over to his dad, shouting "Dad!" to get his attention.

"Look, Dad, I'm gonna jump off the fence!" Hannah bragged.

"Don't fall," said her father, unimpressed (he had raised five sons, and his daughter was turning out to be far less creative than her predecessors in coming up with dangerous stunts). "How's it goin', boy?" he said to Max.

"I got a question for you, Dad," he said, glancing briefly at his little sister before judging her safe and turning his attention elsewhere. "Mom wouldn' answer."

"What's the question?" he asked suspiciously. "Why wouldn't Mom answer?"

"She said it was a girl question and told me to ask you."

"Girl questions?" Max's father stood up straight, dropped the bucket he was cleaning, and wiped his hands on his jeans, indicating that Max had his full attention. "Well, was it a girl question?"

"Not _a'zackly_... It _was_ a question _about_ a girl, though."

His father nodded. "I see. Well, let's hear it."

He fumbled for a way to explain. "There's this girl in my class, rah't? Her name's Lindy. Her brother died, over the summer, when everybody was sick, you know? She didn' even have any family to begin with. I don't really know what happened to her parents, though..."

"Uh-huh...?" his father prompted.

"Well, when she come back to school after summer break, she was... diff'rnt, I guess."

"How d'you figure?"

"Look!" Hannah shouted. "I'm gonna jump on the bull's side'a the fence!"

After checking to see that the bull was nowhere near where Hannah was playing, Max's father gave her an "Okay, honey, don't step in a cow-pie while you're over there" and again focused on Max.

"She don't talk, Dad, barely at all!" Max explained. "Even if you try to talk to her, she just glares at you until you can't hardly stand to be around anymore. It's like she's empty... or at least somewhere very far away."

"Sounds sad," he observed without vested interest. "So how'd you get involved?"

"I promised to meet her somewhere later tonight. I was hoping I could say something... I don't know, som'm about... Pat, you know? And then she might maybe feel better about her big brother, too. But I don't know what to say so it sounds... you know, smart." He looked away when he had to mention Patrick's name. Six years wasn't so long ago, and he hated to see the way his parents and older siblings still flinched.

"Dad, look! I'm gonna slap the bull's ass! Wanna see?"

"Run fast if he don't move; run faster if he does," her father reminded her.

"So what should I do?" Max continued.

His dad put a minute of thought into it, rubbing his stubbly chin with his thumb and forefinger. "Well, you want these ta be your own words, rah't?"

"Of course."

"Dad! Look! _Dad-_dy!"

"Ta try an' make Lindy feel like she ain't alone in the world, rah't?" his father went on, ignoring Hannah's whines.

"A'zackly."

"Then don't try ta make it some kinda big production, boy," his father concluded. He ruffled Max's hair playfully. "If you spend too much time coming up with beautiful Rattl'arrowean sonnets ta try an' impress'er, your message'll get lost in them iambic pentameters. The truth, boy: that's all she needs'ta hear."

Max beamed, looking more reassured than he felt, although he did feel the _tiniest_ bit more confident. "Thanks, Dad."

"Dad!" Hannah screamed in real fear, no longer playful or whiny. "DAD!" Max's head turned fast enough to give him whiplash and he saw what the problem was: Hannah was now being chased by the bull.

"HANNAH! Stop runnin' in circles and get to the fence!" his father shouted, racing toward the fence and vaulting over it in one fluid movement.

"I cain't—" Hannah panted, "cain't g—... fast enough!"

"You'd sure as hell better!" his father responded while he jumped around and waved his arms, attempting to get the attention of the bull. His fear was coming out like anger.

Hannah's shoe get stuck in a muddy place, tripping her up. She almost fell but recovered, though her shoe stayed stuck behind her and was soon pushed deeper into the mud by the running bull.

"Stop screamin' like a banshee!" their dad ordered. "You're makin' 'im madder!"

Hannah couldn't seem to stop the shrieks from pouring from her mouth. "Daddy!"

They say bad luck gets worse before it gets better, but that good luck streaks are often bad omens. In any case, luck was clearly not with Max's little sister when she tripped for real this time and landed in the mud. His father ran straight for her immediately, but he wasn't superhuman and there was no way he could have made it there fast enough. The bull ran straight over Hannah, who continued to scream hysterically.

"BOY! GET HELP!" Max's father bellowed.

"Yes!" Without staying to find out how badly she was hurt, Max turned and sprinted at top speed for the house.

* * *

Melinda glared across the river in the direction she knew Max would come from, if he were really coming. She'd had the time to wait for an hour, fall asleep by the bank, wake up God knew how much later, and still Max was a no-show.

She stood up and brushed off her pants, ignoring Eli's taunts as well as her own self-flagellation.

She stared into the deep night for one long minute, hesitating, then blinked. The tears overflowed and tracked silently down her face without being wiped away.

She walked right up to the place where the water and the mud and the reeds joined indistinctly. She picked up a rock, or maybe it was an unsuspecting turtle, and examined it, turning it over in her hands a couple times and squinting through the vaguely starlit darkness.

Nope, not a turtle.

A drop fell on the rock, but it was already wet from the river and it made no difference.

Nothing made a difference anymore.

Crying out in frustration, Melinda threw her arm back and hurled the rock across the bank with all the force in her—let's admit it—emaciated body.

"IDIOT!" she screamed.

She never specified whether the idiot was him or herself.


	37. Denial

"Are they gone yet?" Ed whispered, straining his ears to hear the sound of the door closing.

"Remind me," Winry whispered back, "why do we wait until Al and Luna are gone in the evenings? We didn't used to."

"They didn't used to _leave_, now did they? Always exploit conveniences, Win. Now shh, I can't hear."

Winry fell silent for about three seconds and leaned on the doorframe while Ed made a fool of himself, standing in the hall listening for the sound of the door to close.

"They must be gone," he said finally. "We're free as long as we don't wake Jo-jo."

"The child sleeps like a rock! _Illegal stimulant drugs_ couldn't wake her."

He laughed a little. "I know, I know. Just... trying to cover all my bases. Remember that time Meta caught us in the closet?"

Winry laughed. "How could I forget?" She leaned off of the frame of the door and backed further into the room. "Oh, just get in here, idiot, before all your bother actually does wake the baby and then we're screwed."

"Somehow, I feel like you're timing me."

"Twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six... oh, what was that, Ed? Must've missed it, I was too busy counting down the seconds you have until I decide to get a 'headache' and stop you cold."

Ed rolled his eyes and stepped into the room, stealthily closing the door behind him. It was early evening and getting dark, so Winry went to the center of the room and pulled the chain on the light, but Ed came up behind her and pulled it back off. This was one of the several things Ed and Winry disagreed upon: whether to make out with the lights on or off. Winry preferred to be able to see what she was doing, while Ed's excuse was that he liked the sense of blindness and being able to move by touch.

Winry thought his real reason was that he was still self-conscious about his erections: at least if it was dark he had a little control over the situation, since it wasn't like she would notice by just looking down.

Not that she didn't notice.

Not that she didn't take advantage.

It was in doing just that—manipulating their positions so that she was straddling his lap—that Winry remembered the little piece of paper she had in her pocket and quickly withdrew it before it could get wrinkled. "Oh! I almost forgot!"

"What's that you've got?" Ed asked.

Winry waved it in front of his face.

"I can't see," he said.

"I bought train tickets. It leaves late tomorrow night and I plan to come back on Tuesday if everything goes my way, but just in case it takes longer than four days, I didn't get return tickets."

"Oh," said Ed. Then, a second later, "Plural?"

"Yes."

"Who's going with you?"

Winry stared.

"No, seriously. Who?"

She continued staring.

"_Me_?"

"Yes, Ed," said Winry with exasperation. "Of course, _you_."

"Why?"

Winry had fully intended to tell him straight-up about Charles just so she could have that burden off of her chest, but she chickened out again. "I thought you might want to come along. Seeing as you spend so much effort making sure we're alone, I thought maybe you'd like a chance for some real... uh, aloneness?"

_Holy crap,_ she thought, _what exactly am I offering? _Suddenly telling the truth didn't seem so terrifying.

_No fuckin' way,_ he thought, _what exactly is she offering? _Suddenly there was no way he could have said no.

"Uhh... nnn-... yehhh-... well..." Ed drew a mental blank. "Yeah, I guess... I mean, good idea." He wished he could come up with a clever one-liner so he didn't sound so... stupid right then, but nothing came to mind, so he laughed awkwardly. "Lior or bust, right?"

* * *

Robert Ingalls came home around five o'clock in the evening. When interrogated by his parents later about where he had been, he would claim to have been walking his girlfriend home and taking the long way there, but he had actually been smoking behind the diner with his friends until old lady Lucy herself had come out and shooed them away.

He didn't go straight inside. First, he made it a point to go around back and stow his cigarettes in the usual place. It was here that he noticed that one of the mares was missing, which was odd, because if she had been put out to graze, then why not the others as well?

Outside, he hung around purposelessly for a few minutes, then finally he ambled in the back door and pretended he had been home for some time.

His youngest brother was pacing a long path between the living room and the joined kitchen, while the second-youngest was sitting on the couch, tapping his foot. Both looked pale and anxious.

"What happened?" Rob asked, looking apprehensively at their faces. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"Hannah..." Eric mumbled, putting his face in his hands. "She..."

"Mom's in the bedroom with Hannah; we're not 'lowed to go in," said Max mechanically. "Dad went'ta get the doctor."

Rob stared at them both, his mind blank for anything to say, then after a minute, he exhaled painfully and tried to keep calm for his little brothers' sakes. "Ta get the doctor? What happened?"

Max kicked a toy across the living room. It hit the lamp and made the light dance on the walls for a few seconds. "She's hurt."

"How bad?" Rob asked.

It was at this point that Eric could no longer contain it: the twelve-year-old, always a sensitive boy, burst into entirely unmanly tears, which he tried to hide for pride's sake.

Max went to the couch and not so much sat as threw himself upon it.

Judging by his brothers' reactions, and the muffled female sobbing noises from the upstairs (he could not tell who, exactly, was crying), Rob knew it had to be pretty dire. He joined his brothers on the couch, sitting rigidly. He was sixteen: almost a man, barely a man, kind of a child, mostly scared. "She's tough. She'll be okay," he promised, rubbing Eric's shoulder.

"What if she ain't?" he wailed. "What if it happens again?"

Horrified, Rob punched him. "You shut up! Hannah's fine, got it?"

"Oh, God!" Eric put his head in his hands. "You know it too! You know it too!"

"Shut up! Shut up!" Rob hit him again. "Shut up!"

* * *

"Y'know what I never understood? Haiku. What a pointless limitation on a piece of poetry. How can you possibly say anything meaningful in seventeen syllables, anyway? It's ridiculous!"

"Uh-huh," said Al.

It was late in the evening, and they were walking home hand-in-hand.

"Who invented that, anyway? The Xingese? Bunch of rice-munchin' idiots they are, anyway, especially the border-hoppin' desert-crossin' kind."

"I've never heard you drop so many G's before, Luna. You must feel quite strongly about this."

"I'm having an angry day," she responded.

"Is there such thing?"

"There most absolutely positively certainly _is_! Do you never wake up one morning and sense that somewhere out there, there are stupid people doing stupid things, and it just grates on your nerves until there's naught left to do but rant about stupid things 'til the cows come home?"

"Uh... nope, I don't think that's ever happened to me, Luna."

"Well, it happens to me sometimes, so maybe you're just an anomaly. And you know what else bugs me? Illegal Drachman immigration. Because honestly, doesn't their country spend all this flippin' time bothering our soldiers up at the border—and don't even get me STARTED on the border reinforcements, like that underfunded, understaffed, overregulated military hell hole that is Briggs Fort—and then these Drachman illegals have the balls to come over to _our_ side of the border and beg to be given political refugee status because of their supposed 'tyranny'? I tell you, it was bad enough under Bradley, when we had all these Drachmans coming over and taking underpaid entry-level jobs up north, but NOW we've got Armstrong, who thinks she's some kind of good guy savior come to clean up Amestris once and for all, when in reality she—" Luna stopped talking, stopped walking, stopped thinking, stopped breathing. Slowly, as if in a dream, her hand slid from Al's and came to touch the side of her face. Had he just kissed her, or was she imagining it?

Al watched her carefully, trying to understand her reaction, while he internally panicked and hoped it wasn't too soon, hoped he hadn't screwed something up.

Luna's mouth was hanging open. She stared ahead. "What..." she managed to say, "was that?"

Al shrugged in his best façade of nonchalance. "I wanted to see what would happen if I tried it," he explained.

"Oh." She could not for the life of her think of anything to say.

"I'm sorry," Al apologized when she did not say anything else. "I made you uncomfortable?" But his tone said something more akin to "I can't believe I just did that; I'm an idiot; I feel like shit."

"No," said Luna, still in a daze. "Um... I think my brain shut down."

"Oh," said Al. He took her hand again. "Well, let's keep walking. It's getting late. We left at, what, nine o'clock?."

* * *

Melinda ran straight home, trying to contain her tears the whole way. If she had paid a little more attention, she would have noticed Al and Luna out as well that evening (at the moment that she ran by, they were having some kind of dull conversation some fifty yards away in a cornfield and didn't see her), which would have saved her some time given that her intent was to speak with one of her guardians. However, she did not notice them, so she ran all the way home, thudded and clattered her way upstairs, and ran to the door to what was technically Ed's bedroom but not really all his.

Ed was trying his damnedest to stay asleep despite Melinda's noise, while Winry was sitting up and it looked like she had been about to go investigate the sudden noisemaking. "What's wrong, Meta?" she asked, rubbing her eyes to see better.

"Get out," Ed groaned, muffled by the pillow in which his face was buried.

"There's a party for one of my friends on Saturday," said Melinda.

"So?" said Ed.

Winry punched him on the arm. "It's only Thursday, Me-mee, and neither of us is going to be here on Saturday anyway. What do you want us to do about it?"

"Forbid me to go."

Winry stared at her blankly. "What?"

"Just do it. Forbid me to go to the party."

"Why?"

"So I can tell my friends I'm forbidden to go to the party, _duh_."

"That doesn't make any sense," said Winry, shaking her head no.

"Just do it!" Melinda implored.

Ed gave a growl of annoyance and sat up. "Meta, you are forbidden to go to the party on Saturday." He looked at Winry. "See? Not that hard." He laid back down and flung the covers over his head.

"Thanks," said Melinda. She left without another word, leaving Winry to wonder and Ed to sleep.

* * *

**Originally, the whole arc revolving around Max and the loss of his brother was only going to be included as it was relevant to Meta/Melinda's own issue. Max only had the other siblings just to prove that he had a big family. As I was writing, it occurred to me that this backstory was NOT NEARLY as powerful as it was in my head, and I finally diagnosed the problem in that the angst was too far in the past. So, to fix it (and also space out the action a little; have you noticed that all of this crap is happening in the same week?) I put in peril the life of the previously nonexistent Hannah Ingalls (whose name was almost Holly until I decided that was somewhat too old-sounding so I gave that name to Max's mom; there's a fun fact for ya) and then, since I didn't think the MAIN pairing in this fic was getting enough attention, I decided to also send Ed and Winry away for a few days. This is actually resulting in somewhat of a block for me, because--**

**SPOILER ALERT--**

**I can't decide how exactly the Charles Sorano arc is going to play out, though I'm hoping that between Winry getting sexually harassed in Lior and Chuck getting his lights knocked out (TWICE if I can manage it!) there will be time for some legit EdWin I-love-you's. There was one I love you implied in ENAT, when Ed was having that (can I say this on TV? haha) wet dream about Winry, he did say he loved her, and we found out afterwards that he had been talking in his sleep. But it was never explicitly STATED that Winry heard him say he loved her, and for good reason. However, it's now October (in ENATAgain time) and Winry has been wearing that damn ring since April. It's about freakin' time that SOMEBODY said I love you, y'know what I mean?? **

**SPOILERS OVER. **

**Please review!!  
**


	38. Business

**Sorry for the lateness! This chapter was actually done ON TIME, but I wasn't anywhere near a computer (or even a pretty phone with Internet capacity!) over the weekend, so unfortunately I couldn't post it on Saturday. I know it's now Monday and I ought to post the NEXT chapter of ENATAgain today as well, but I won't do it today. Primarily because it's not typed yet (since I was nowhere near a computer). In ****case anyone gives a rat's ass, I was out of state, in Shenandoah, Virginia. Now, not to knock VA (it's my motherland), but if you're not an outdoorsy person by nature, you won't have much fun in Shenandoah. Sure, I could TELL that there was fun happening all around me, but I wasn't having it. Also, the one fun thing I did do... got white clay dust all over my shoes, and that hasn't come off yet. I don't quite understand why the clay dust is white, since Virginia's soil is almost uniformly made of RED clay, but... Nyeh.  
**

* * *

**Right off the bat, let me mention that the train Ed and Winry are in is not set up like American trains, by which I mean metros, because we don't HAVE trains in America anymore (haha.) In my head, it's a train of the Hogwarts Express variety: sort of private, sort of not; I don't know the word for those little booths, so I'm calling them booths. Sue me if I'm wrong. **

* * *

Winry shifted on the poorly cushioned bench and scowled. "I hate riding on trains," she complained. "All this bumping and vibrating hurts like crazy."

"Sorry?" said Ed, for lack of anything useful to say. "You get used to it after a while. I just ignore it."

Winry groaned. "I'll_ never_ get used to it!" She looked out the window, but it was just cows and bales of hay out there and had been for miles. "I wish I had a distraction, at least..." she sighed, wishing that she hadn't already finished reading and rereading this month's ProsthetiTech Innovations Co. catalog.

"Now that's just asking for trouble," Ed commented, his eyes sliding over to her for a second before he again fixed his vision on the opposite wall of the booth.

Winry made a questioning noise, looking at him.

When he realized she hadn't gotten the joke, Ed gave her a look.

"I don't know what that face you're making means," she told him, breaking the momentary silence.

Ed couldn't tell if she was joking or not, so he continued to stare.

Winry realized she wasn't being transparent enough. She moved so that she was sitting on her knees on the bench, facing Ed's left side. Only her hands in her lap kept her short skirt from riding up. "Maybe I am asking for trouble," she said in an unmistakably seductive tone.

The glow of the lightbulb flicking on over Ed's head was almost visible as he realized that she had been joking from the start. He rolled his eyes at her. "Clearly, you'll have to ask for trouble with a little more directness from now on, Win."

She grinned and crawled across the bench until she was on top of him, then straddled his lap, a position she put herself in so often Ed was beginning to suspect she was doing it on purpose. He also suspected she wanted him to know she was doing it on purpose, which made him almost a little paranoid in that _the-whole-world-is-secretly-ganging-up-behind-my-back_ way.

"Can we make some trouble, then?" she asked, still smiling wickedly.

Ed decided he didn't mind the whole world secretly ganging up behind his back, as long as the ganging-up involved_ this_.

"Traditionally, isn't it the guy who's always asking to fool around, and the girl who's supposed to receive?" Ed wondered aloud. "If so, I think I have some serious identity issues."

Winry actually thought about this. "Who told you that? Sounds like a load of crap."

* * *

Winry groaned loudly after she had unlocked the shop, let herself and Ed in, and dropped her bag on the floor just inside the door. Slowly, she stretched her back, then her arms, her elbows, and finally her wrists and fingers. "God, travel really takes it out of me! I can't believe we spent ALL DAY on that stupid train!"

Ed flicked the lightswitch for the fluorescents in the shop and looked around. It looked an awful lot like the basement automail workshop in Resembool, and he supposed that Winry had rearranged it like that on purpose. "As far as modes of transportation go, I much preferred riding the train from Resembool to Lior than I enjoyed lugging these bags all the way across town to get here. Walking is _painfully_ slow."

"Flick those lights off, Ed, they're giving me a headache already," said Winry. "See that door on the far left? It opens into the staircase. Upstairs is where the living space is." She picked up her bag again and headed for it with Ed not far behind. "Shoot," she said as they were trooping up the steps. "I'll have to buy some food, too, won't I? Can't live off of canned beans and rice for nearly a week."

"I'll do that first thing tomorrow, Win," Ed offered. "You've got work to do, right? Just write a list."

"Write you a shopping list? _You_, _shopping_?" Winry giggled. "That sounds so... _domestic_."

Ed wanted to shove her. "Fine, then you can just do it yourself while I laze around... _domestically._ Ha!"

Winry halted at the top of the stairs. "'Domestic'! That reminds me..."

Ed nearly bumped into her, but caught himself. "What?"

Winry turned around and faced him, giving him a very stern look which was compromised by the fact that they were standing in an unlit stairwell in the middle of the night. "For the next week, if anyone asks, your name is Edward _Rockbell_, okay? (Unless it's a person who already knows your name. But then they wouldn't be asking for it.)"

"Why the hell is it that?" he demanded. "Is this another one of those things where you told somebody we were married? Because I was not pleased about that, you know!"

Winry sighed. "I'm sorry, but this is another one of those things."

"Winry! Give me a break!"

"I said I'm sorry! Look, because my last name is known around here, people are going to think it weird if my 'husband,'" she made finger quotes around the word, "has a different last name than me. So you have to be Rockbell for now. It's only a few days, I promise."

"Why did you tell that lie AGAIN?" Ed was still fuming.

"Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies," said Winry, holding up her hands apologetically. "You'll probably find out soon enough anyway."

Whenever Charles found out she was back...

* * *

Winry spent most of the first day back organizing her unfinished Lior business. She had been running it by mail for the past three months, but there are some things that couldn't really be done by mail, or at least not done well.

She had worked with a helpful automotive engineer in the city to be the medium between her customers and herself, because of course a customer couldn't exactly perform automail attachments and detachments on their own. For repairs and problem diagnostics, the only way she could do her job was to have every single malfunctioning piece removed from the customer's body and shipped to where she was. It was a big hassle, and so for the smaller fixes, many of her customers had told her they would wait until she got back to take a look. After all, most of these people had gotten by fine before she was here, and they were still getting by okay when she suddenly left.

Winry had made the mistake of telling some people the date she would be back in town, so on the first full day back, the shop was mobbed by dozens of customers.

Fortunately, most of them had minor issues with their automail—after all, those with major automail malfunctions would have sent their automail down to her for repairs—but the sheer volume of people who had found out one way or another that she was back was daunting.

Winry was up to the challenge.

* * *

Ed woke up early, around eight o'clock, and stared around at the room he was in, surprised to find that it wasn't his room in Resembool... and then he remembered where he was, and everything made sense again.

He glanced at the clock on the stand on Winry's side of the bed (she was already gone, of course) and realized that it was quite early for him to be up, compared to his usual waking time (eleven o'clock). It wasn't long before he figured out that the disturbance in his sleep was the voices coming from downstairs. _The shop_...

Ed rolled out of bed and dressed himself, then picked up Winry's clothes where they had been discarded on the floor and made a pile of his and her stuff by the wall to worry about later.

The upper level of Winry's shop had two bedrooms, one on the north and one on the south sides of the building (the shop front faced east). The bathroom was on the west wall and it opened to both bedrooms and the common area. This area had on the east wall a long row of counters with overhanging cupboards which were broken by the presence of the icebox, the range, and the sink. A few feet away there was the dining table and a trio of chairs, while the rest of the space in the common room was dominated by a very nice navy couch set gathered around a coffee table. The only other furniture in the space was a bookcase, which was almost empty except for a row of paperbacks that were all the same shape and color scheme; Ed suspected this was a series of automail manuals of some sort.

The shopping list he'd asked her to write yesterday was sitting on the coffee table, along with 1,000 cenz in notes of 200. Ed picked up the list but left the money; he felt like a thief, buying food that was for himself (well, half of it was) with her money.

It wasn't until Ed got downstairs that he realized just how full the shop really was. People were crowding every chair in the front part (the shop front area) while those who did not have a place to sit were milling about aimlessly. Since none of the customers had been allowed past the counter, Winry was easy to spot in the back of the shop (the workshop area) and she had an older woman's right metal leg open. Hovering near her was a dark-haired (and... t-... t-... _tall_...) man who Ed initially assumed to be assisting merely because of his location, but after a moment Ed realized the man wasn't actually DOING anything. He then remembered that Winry didn't have an assistant, so he stared at him for a few moments, perplexed, before he gave up trying to figure it out and just headed out, having to squeeze between the crowd of Winry's waiting customers to do so.

* * *

"Hey, Win, who was that kid who just came out of that door back there?"asked Charles.

"What door?" asked Winry, a little impatient of Charles' constant distractions. "What kid?" She looked up from Mrs. O'Donaghy's right leg to see what Charles was talking about.

"He snuck out of that door there, looked at you for a minute, then left the shop. Isn't that the door that leads to the staircase...?" He gasped as he figured it out. "Winry! He just robbed you! Oh my God, and in broad daylight! Don't worry, honey, I'll chase him down and kick his a—"

"Charles!" Winry shouted, twisting to grab hold of the back of his shirt before he could leave.

"Chuck," Charles said automatically. He stopped and looked at her. "It's cute of you to be concerned, but don't worry, baby, I won't get hurt! Let go of my shirt."

"He's not robbing me," said Winry. "That was Ed. He came with me from Resembool. He has my money with him, but only because I told him to go food shopping today. So calm down and stop distracting me from Mrs. O'Donaghy's leg. Thank you for being so patient with us, Mrs. O'Donaghy."

"It's no trouble," said Mrs. O'Donaghy. "Call me Marsha."

"Sorry, babe," said Charles to Winry, running his fingers through his hair as if this somehow eliminated his temporary lapse in cool. "You never told me you brought a friend from your hometown up here."

"He's not just my _'friend_,'" Winry informed him. She fell silent for a second, distracted by a wire that had become frayed and refused to come out. By the time she had achieved the wire's removal, she'd forgotten her prior train of thought completely.

Charles took her distraction to mean that she was done with her sentence. "Why would you bring someone you don't like with you?"

"Is this cream, or yellow?" Winry wondered to herself, only half listening to Charles. She stood up and went to a shelf, where rows of small, neat bins kept many wires of different colors and lengths organized. Mrs. O'... uh, Marsha needed seventeen inches of yellow wire... "I'll have to cut a twenty-inch down to size," Winry said aloud as she plucked one of these wires from its place and came back to the worktable where Mrs. O'... Marsha was sitting.

"Win," said Charles, a little impatient. "Why ya ignorin' me, babe?"

"I'm sorry, what was your question?" Winry asked, looking at him blankly. Her short-term memory was frayed by the stress.

"Why did you bring someone you don't like with you?"

"Who don't I like?" Winry asked in response. She set the wire down on the table next to Mrs. O'... Marsha and went to go find her wire cutter.

Charles followed her. "That Ed kid. You just said you don't like him."

"Did I?" she asked airily. "That doesn't sound like something I would say."

Charles rolled his eyes. "You just said it. Two seconds ago. Win, are you feeling okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine, get your hand off my shoulder, I'm just having a very busy day and you're confusing me while I'm trying to work."

"Sorry, babe."

Winry bit back a very colorful response and brought her wire cutters back to the main worktable, then picked up the yellow wire again. "It'll be a few more minutes only, Mrs. O'Marsha," she said as she used her thumb to guesstimate how much to chop off of the wire.

"And anyway," Charles was saying somewhere in her peripheral, "it's not like I really care what you think about that Ed kid, right? After all, I know your 'type' pretty well: tall, dark, and handsome; in a word, me."

Winry wondered if his ego might inflate too much and explode, rendering him a useless vegetable. She hoped that this was possible and that it might happen soon. "Charles, we—"

"Chuck."

"—'re not together, you know."

Charles nodded but didn't look like he believed her in the slightest. "Riiight, your _mystery husband_."

"You mean Ed?"

Charles did a comical double take. "WHAT?"

"Are. You. Talking. About. Ed. Question mark?"

"You're with HIM?!"

"Yes." Winry was totally calm.

"The little short blond kid with the ponytail?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"What do you SEE in him?"

Winry faltered for a satisfying answer. "I just love him, okay?" she said finally, exasperatedly. "That's all there is to it."

* * *

When Ed came back later that day, his arms laden with grocery bags, the shop was still busy, with about five people waiting patiently for their turns to be seen by Winry. A sixth person came in alongside Ed; a woman about old enough to be his mother held the door open for him since his hands were full, and as she did this he saw both her wedding ring and the finger on which she wore it glint in the sunlight.

Ed didn't call attention to himself as he passed through the shop to get to the stairs, but he noticed that the guy he'd noticed earlier was noticing him right back, and he did not look pleased.

Because he was that kind of stubborn, Ed stuck his tongue out at the guy before he went upstairs.

* * *

**My favorite part of this chapter is the first part, when Ed asks why he receives and Winry initiates. What Ed doesn't realize, which we know full well, is that Ed will _always_ be the bitch. Hahaha. **

**Also, Ed sticking his tongue out in the last line, it's just so Ed.**


	39. The Difference Between Can't & Won't

"No, but seriously, why do you like him?"

"Charles—"

"Chuck."

"_Charles, _it's not your problem, okay?" Winry had lost patience with Charles hours ago. "Ready, Mr. Davenport?"

"Chuck," Charles repeated under his breath.

Mr. Davenport was an extremely tan Cretan man with shiny blue eyes and an overgrown beard. Interestingly enough, he'd lost his left arm to a sharkbite.

"Just do it quick and get it over with," said Mr. Davenport. "Like ripping of one of them sticky bandages."

"Okay," said Winry. She counted to three in her head out of habit, then hooked the arm into position with her alignment tool and shoved it forward all at once. Mr. Davenport flinched, but didn't make a noise; he'd had automail for years. "Try it out," Winry instructed.

He clenched and flexed his hand, rolled his writs, bent his elbow, then rotated his shoulder. "Finely done, Miss Rockbell! The twinge is gone completely. You've definitely earned yourself a repeat customer. Here's your money."

Winry beamed as she took it and went to lock all 1,500 cenz in the cashbox. "Thank you, Mr. Davenport." Then she looked toward the front of the shop to see how many people were waiting still, and found that there was no one left. She glanced at the clock—it was only two. Still early enough to go upstairs and grab lunch. She was famished.

But first, she had another thing she wanted to deal with. Or rather, the thing wanted to deal with _her._

"Finally, some privacy!" Charles exclaimed.

"Not really," said Winry as she was cleaning up her stations. "My_ husband_ is still upstairs." She exaggerated the operative word, passing Charles a meaningful glare.

Charles rolled his eyes. "How you harp on that little blond nuisance! Look, if the morals of it really bother you, just pretend he's not here. Out of sight, out of mind."

"Look, Char—"

"_Chuck!_"

"—les, I don't know how to make this any clearer: No. N-O. Not gonna happen. _Ever._"

"You just don't know what you're missing," he said smoothly.

"Char—" Winry began angrily, whirling around to face him. But before she could get farther than that, she found herself shoved against the worktable, the edge of the cool metal surface digging into the soft flesh of the backs of her thighs, as Charles' tongue invaded her mouth and his hands trapped her wrists, pinning her in place without gentleness.

Winry's first thought was: _No_.

Okay, there was toeing the line. Charles did this every moment he was with her, and Winry resented but tolerated it. Some people were just like that. Charles wouldn't stop, and Winry couldn't stop him.

Then there was crossing the line. Charles had only done this once. Maybe that was an honest mistake. He'd _seemed_ repentant when he'd let go and backed away.

And then there was _rape._ And that was _No._

Winry twisted her hands and dug her nails into his wrists, hoping to draw blood, or at least make him let go, but only succeeded in the latter. As soon as her hands were free, she grabbed his hair and physically ripped him away from her.

"_Asshole!_" Before he could react beyond looking surprised, Winry's fist slammed into his face and sent him reeling backwards into another worktable, off of which a box of screws and a hot soldering iron fell.

The screws scattered every which way. One rolled across the room and landed right in front of…

Ed.

He was standing at the bottom of the staircase.

He stared at her.

He didn't have to say anything.

"Ed…" Winry breathed.

Charles stood up, clutching his bloodied face. "God, you stupid—! You broke my damn nose!"

Winry's eyes were locked on Ed. It wasn't long before Charles followed her gaze and his eyes popped.

"Winry," said Ed through clenched teeth, never taking his eyes off of her. "I'm going to kill him."

Charles made a "pfft" noise—his approximation of one, at least, since the blood in his mouth made it hard to talk.

Ed stepped forward.

"Charles," said Winry softly. "Get out."

"Oh, come on, you're not gonna take him serious—"

"Get. _Out._"

Charles gave her a dirty look, then walked away, spitting blood at her feet as he passed her on the way out of the shop. He slammed the door, though the effect was somewhat ruined by the _ting_ of the little bell.

Winry and Ed stared at each other.

Silence.

Ed broke it. "Ahh… are you okay?"

"Y-… yeah."

He swallowed. "Okay." He turned around and went upstairs slowly, but without looking back. After a few minutes, she heard the sound of something heavy hitting the wall, shaking the building a little. A moment later she heard the charged-wind whoosh of a transmutation being performed, and then nothing.

Winry sank to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself. "Oh, God…" she whispered, but it came out like a little squeak.

And then she started to cry.

* * *

When Ed got upstairs, he sat down at the table and glared at the wall, ignoring the sandwiches he'd made for himself and Winry still sitting on the table.

He was having a very hard time not going back downstairs, running out of the shop, catching that asshole, and beating him to a bloody pulp.

But that wouldn't be appropriate… and Winry would never forgive him for killing her boyfriend.

He couldn't force that image from his head—that asshole's hands on her hips, Winry sliding her hands through his hair—and then, when she caught sight of him, hurriedly shoving the asshole away and punching him in the face for good measure. Was she trying to make it seem like he'd forced himself on her, and she'd pushed him away in self-defense?

He'd seen her burying her hands in that asshole's hair. He'd seen them _kissing. _What the hell was she playing at?

Without really thinking it through, Ed stood up and threw his chair—just smashed the stupid wooden thing against the wall—he imagined doing the same thing to that asshole's head.

He stared at the splintered chair, then stared at the new hole in the wall… then sighed and performed a pair of transmutations to return them both to normal. Destroying Winry's stuff wasn't going to make the fact that she'd cheated on him any less true.

Who was he kidding? Hadn't he _always_ known that he wasn't good enough for her?

Hadn't Greed pointed out to him that he was committing the sin of greed for wanting her?

Hadn't everyone he'd ever met in the history of forever told him about how fucking SHORT he was? And hadn't Winry been telling him since they were little that she didn't like short guys?

Hadn't he known since the aftermath of the human transmutation that he would never be worth the love of someone as pure and whole as her?

He should have known that what he thought he'd had wouldn't—couldn't—last.

He was a fool to love her, to think she loved him.

Ed walked into the bedroom and grabbed his suitcase. The thought going through his head was _I want to go home._

Then again… did he still have one of those?

* * *

Winry knew that, even though it felt good to cry, she couldn't—wouldn't—do it all day. She had to clean up the mess in her shop, she had to get something to eat, and she really, _really_ needed to take a shower to get rid of the shudder-worthy sensation of uncleanliness that lingered on her skin in the places where Charles had touched her.

She took a long time cleaning, trying to give Ed some time to calm down. The ice in his voice when he had told her he was going to kill Charles had sent chills down her spine. She was afraid to face him too soon.

However, when she came upstairs and saw the old, battered suitcase sitting on the floor by the door to their room, she wondered if she should have faced him sooner.

Ed was stretched out on the couch, but not in a way that looked particularly comfortable or relaxed. He was staring—no, glaring at the wall, and the fact that he had chosen to sit on the only couch that faced away from the staircase clued her in that he hadn't done it on accident.

"Those sandwiches on the table…" she said when she noticed them.

"Eat them," he said coldly without turning around. "I made them for you."

"Thanks," Winry managed to say despite the lump in her throat. Couldn't he even _look_ at her?

Winry couldn't really muster the appetite for a large meal, but her stomach was screaming for sustenance, so she forced down a few bites.

She heard Ed get up from the couch and come to stand over her, but she couldn't make herself look up, for fear she'd have to meet his eyes.

"I want my ring back."

Winry's chewing slowed. The food suddenly tasted like cardboard on her tongue. "Why?" Her eyes traveled to her right hand: the little diamond winked at her.

Ed took a shuddering breath to keep his voice strong. "I gave that ring to a girl I love in exchange for a promise that she would always wait for me, only me, until I could come back for her. The girl I gave that ring to would never have broken that promise, which means you can't possibly be her. So give me my ring back."

Winry let the barely-eaten sandwich fall onto the plate, then she brushed her hand off on her work jeans and slid the ring off of her finger.

Ed held his hand out.

Winry stared at it, eyes filling with tears, then she looked up at Ed.

He stared away at something on the wall. "Don't think you'll get out of this by crying at me."

She gazed down at her ring again. Saying goodbye to this was saying goodbye to everything.

She couldn't—wouldn't—do it.

Winry closed her fist around _her_ ring and stood to look him in the eye. "No."

"This isn't your decis—"

"I _disagree!_" said Winry forcefully. She gestured toward his suitcase. "You can leave if—if that's what you want—but I won't give up this ring until—until—" _Until the day I stop loving you._ "Until forever!"

"How long is forever?" Ed shouted right back. "Will you give it back when that asshole downstairs gives you one? Is this some fucked-up game of hot potato to you?"

Winry rolled her eyes. "_Excuse_ me? He's never going to be allowed within fifty feet of me again!"

"Don't break up with your boyfriend on MY account!"

"Ed, I think you're putting a lot more blame on me than I deserve. It wasn't like I ASKED for this to happen to me!"

Ed made a disgusted noise. "Sorry, but I don't have a lot of sympathy—just because you got CAUGHT? Give me a break!" He turned and went to pick up the suitcase.

"Caught?" Winry repeated. "I don't think 'catching' is the right word for walking in on me getting _assaulted_!"

"'Assaulted'!? _Really!_? Is _that_ your excuse?"

"It's not an EXCUSE, Ed, it's the TRUTH! Are you trying to say I'm _lying_ to you?"

"That's EXACTLY what I'm saying!"

"So what are you saying happened, then?" she demanded, folding her arms over her chest.

Ed turned around and stared at her.

In the tense silence, Winry scrubbed angrily at her face with her sleeve, smearing something black and greasy across her cheek from her hand. She didn't notice. When more tears came down, they washed away some of the color and left tracks.

She looked like hell.

Ed pretended not to notice the crying, but his Adam's apple bobbed when she caught his eye, before he looked away.

Winry knew what he expected her to say. It wasn't hard to figure it out. But it stung that he was really so insecure in their relationship that he believed she would actually do something like… that.

"If you're not going to deny it…" He shifted his weight, crossed and uncrossed his arms. "Just give me my ring back."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I don't have to. You know the answer."

"Just as I don't have to deny that anything happened. You know the answer."

"Then give me my ring back."

"No."

"Then I'm wasting my time." He already had the suitcase in hand. He walked to the stairs reluctantly.

"Ed," said Winry. He paused. "If you walk down those stairs… I hate you."

"You never hated me all those other times I walked out."

"You had a reason all those other times."

"I have a reason now, too."

"Your reason is wrong."

"Then say it to me. Say you weren't kissing him back." He was begging now.

"If you put down that case, I'll do you one better," Winry promised.

Ed looked downstairs and seriously considered putting the suitcase down and staying, pretending he hadn't seen what he'd seen, letting himself believe every lie or truth that tumbled for the lips of that teary, grease-covered angel with the ocean eyes.

"I can't…"

"Please don't leave me."

Ed flinched.

* * *

"_Well, um... good night," Ed said awkwardly._

"_Wait."_

_He froze immediately, as if he had been expecting her to stop him. "What?"_

"_Please, don't go."_

_Ed sighed._

"_Don't leave me again."_

_He flinched._

_Winry bit her lip and mentally begged him to agree. Finally, he gave in and slid under the blanket next to her._

"_But only just this once," he qualified as she made herself comfortable against him._

* * *

At the age of eleven, Edward Elric picked up his suitcase with his brand-new automail arm, waved goodbye to his friend, her grandmother, and their dog, and headed off to places far and wide.

Five years later, he no longer desired to be in places far and wide. There was only one thing he desired now, and if what she desired was for him to put down that suitcase—the very same one! —he couldn't say no.

Ed's fingers went slack and the suitcase clunked on the floor. "Explain to me what I saw."

"He kept coming on to me before, when I was alone. I told him about you, of course, but that didn't seem to put him off. I was glad when I left, actually… well, except the part about the Fever being around, obviously…

"But then, you reminded me that I had to go back. I didn't want to go; I knew he'd turn up again. I made the mistake of thinking that he'd lay off if you were here, but…"

Winry sighed. "I'm sorry I misled you into coming here. I was afraid of how you'd react if you knew the real story."

"And with good reason," said Ed. "I wasn't joking when I said I'd kill that asshole."

"I knew that," Winry told him. "Why do you think I sent him away so quick? If it weren't for you I'd've continued to pummel him."

"About that," said Ed, "How do I know you WOULD have pummeled him? How do I know you didn't just hit that asshole because I showed up and you were putting on a show? How do I know everything you just said wasn't a lie? How can I trust you now?"

Winry was quiet for a moment, regarding the ring in her hand, then she closed her fist around it and walked up to Ed. "When Charles saw you, he couldn't believe it. He couldn't understand why I would like an alchemy freak who does insane things like… oh, I don't know, roll off of my work table and start reciting the periodic table…"

Ed smiled despite himself, but quickly realized it and set his face in stone again.

"…or wear his hair long like a girl's…" Winry reached back and twirled a lock of his hair around her left pointer finger, her lips lifting in just a hint of a smile.

Ed quickly gathered his hair and tied it in a tail with the single rubber band around his wrist.

"But the thing that really bugged the hell out of Charles—and I quote—was 'He's short!'" Winry smiled.

Ed did not.

Winry stood on her tiptoes to get at Ed's eye level, just to prove the point. "Charles just couldn't understand how I could stand a temperamental, alchemy-obsessed, obnoxious, possessive, girlie-haired, short, one-legged _jackass _like you."

Ed was silent. He had been wondering that same thing for quite some time.

"He didn't get it," Winry continued. "But I thought, 'til now, that you did."

"Get to the point," Ed ordered.

"I love you. That's the reason, the reason you should believe me, the reason I would never cheat on you, the reason I won't surrender my ring, the reason for everything."

Ed looked like he wanted to believe her more than he wanted air to breathe. "That's all?" he asked.

"That's all," she confirmed. "If that's not enough, then…" She looked down at her hand. "Then I'm wearing this ring for the wrong reason." She grabbed his left hand and pressed the ring into his palm. "It's yours." Winry gazed at him hopefully, biting her bottom lip, but Ed just closed his fingers around the ring, then pocketed it.

"Okay," he said roughly.

Winry wrapped her arms around herself and waited for him to say something else.

"I know," he said in response to her expectant expression. "I just don't _know._"

That sounded like no. "I see…" she whispered.

Ed grimaced at the way she seemed to wilt in front of his eyes. "It's just that… I can't get that image out of my head, you know?"

Winry nodded mechanically. 'Yeah." She let her hands drop to her sides and stepped back. "I'm… yeah… going to go… yeah. That way." She stepped around him and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.


	40. Promises

**Thanks for the big response to last chapter! You all made me so happy while you were busy being mad at me! ^-^**

**Sorry if there are a lot of typos again! I did **_**attempt**_** to catch them all.**

**And one other thing: Don't think that just because all of the segments of the chapter are in a certain order, it means they happen in that order. Charles kissed Winry on Saturday afternoon. The bull injured Hannah on the previous Thursday evening. Early Friday morning was when Ed and Winry left Resembool on the train. Saturday was the day of Tricia's surprise party that Meta didn't want to go to. **

**They're out of order for stylistic reasons. I like the scenes to be broken up with different scenes. It feels like I'm watching a TV show: Meanwhile, back at the ranch…**

* * *

Knowing Winry, Ed expected to hear her crying in there, but instead he heard the sound of her opening and closing the door to the bathroom, then moving around in there for a minute, accidentally knocking something over, and finally starting the shower.

Ed looked at the suitcase on the floor. He could still leave, and he knew Winry wouldn't blame him. A part of him wanted to go, to be free of Winry forever… after all, he didn't have to go home to Resembool if he didn't want to: the only thing at home that he'd ever wanted to actually come _home_ to was Win…

…ry.

_You idiot._

Ed mentally kicked himself. Where the hell had his priorities gone?

He dashed into the bedroom and towards the door to the bathroom, but refrained from bursting in there—after all, this was the _bathroom_, and he'd heard her start the shower, so she was probably naked in there. It wasn't a great idea to smash down the door before at least knocking. Then again, he was apparently full of not-so-great ideas today.

In his moment of hesitation in front of the door, Ed became aware of something besides his own sense of annoyance at himself and the resulting high energy and drive to fix things… because beyond that door, Winry was crying. Loudly.

Ed wondered if she was really that upset about him keeping the—oh, who was he kidding? —_her _ring.

Aw, hell. This was Winry. Of COURSE, she was that upset.

He tapped on the door hesitantly, but no response. She hadn't heard it.

"Winry?"

Her breathing hitched when he called her name, but she gave no other indication that she had heard him.

"Winry?" He knocked harder.

Something was wrong. Why wasn't she responding?

Ed waited another minute, then let himself in.

She was sitting on the floor of the shower, leaning against the wall, just letting the water run while she sobbed into her hands.

"Winry!" said Ed in alarm. He shut the water off and grabbed a towel, then crouched beside her and draped it over her shoulders and around her body. He held her when she leaned into him and murmured soothing things into her ear to try to coax a coherent response from her. "Winry, Winry, I'm right here…"

"I… c-can still…" _sob,_ "f-f-fee-… feel…"

"I can't understand you," he told her. "Come on, please stop this…"

"… hands…"

Ed loosened his hold on her. "Am I hurting you somehow…?"

"No, no… _his_ hands… my skin," _hiccup_, "my body," _gasp_, "mine…"

"Whose—oh. _Ohh_…" Ed had no idea what expression was on his face at that moment. "Oh, God… Winry…" He pulled her close and pressed his face into her wet hair.

He felt like shit, of course. There was no way Winry could be faking this kind of distress; she just wasn't THAT good of an actress. Which meant…

She'd been violated… and he'd been jackass enough to turn around and blame HER for it. "Damn it…" Ed said aloud. "I just can't do anything right, can I?" It was the Midas touch in reverse: anything Ed touched turned into another mistake.

"I'm sorry…" she whispered, still holding on to him as if her life depended on it.

"I'm the one who should be sorry," he corrected. "You have nothing to be sorry for."

"Neither do you."

Ed had nothing to say about that, so he said nothing about it, pressing his lips to her temple where the scar she had gotten so long ago by defending him was still visible. He wondered how close he had gotten—and still was—to losing everything.

* * *

"Max, y'idiot, siddown," Rob ordered, glaring at his little brother. The ten-year-old wouldn't stop pacing back and forth across the hospital waiting room.

"I'm too impatient to sit."

"About your stupid baby girlfrien', or our SISTER? Get your priorities straight. And siddown!"

"Ew! Don' call her my girlfrien'! I don' like _Lindy_!"

Rob rolled his eyes. "Whatever! I cain't tell all your little friends apart."

"I feel bad for er," said Max reflectively. "She prolly thinks I forgot 'er. God knows she's a grump 'nyway."

"Shut up about your girlfriend."

Eric made a loud snoring noise indicating that he was trying to sleep and he wanted them to shut up.

"You shut up," said Rob, irritated.

"All of you shut your mouths," their mother, who had been silent up to this point, ordered. "It's the middle of the night, for Chrissakes! Just go to sleep! Why, oh why did God give me so many sons?" She leaned back in her hair and rubbed her eyes. "Where is your father? He needs to get back here."

"Sorry, Mom," said Rob obediently. The sarcasm was lost on his mother, who gave him a little smile of forgiveness.

"Dad's callin' Sam and Lizzie's house, 'member?" said Max.

"I remember, honey; I was just joking," she responded. "Anyway, both'a you boys should sleep. Look how good Eric is at sleepin'! Follow his example! …I'll be right back. Rob, keep an eye on your brothers." She stood up, grabbed her purse, and rooted through it for a box of cigarettes.

Max sat down in the chair his mother had just vacated and pulled his knees up to his chest.

"Don' look so scared," said Rob. "You'll jinx it!"

"But I _am_ scared."

Rob stared at his little brother for a long moment, then mimicked the body language and exhaled. "Me too."

* * *

"Winry, aren't you getting cold?"

"Not if letting go of you means you'll leave."

Ed closed his eyes and exhaled. "I won't leave, I promise. And—and one more thing." He shifted, letting go of her, and fished the ring from his pocket. "If you still want it, Winry… it's yours. But you have to promised to never let me take it back next time I make a fool of myself, okay?"

"'Kay," said Winry with a watery smile as she took it and slowly slid it into place on the third finger of her right hand. "I promise not to let _anyone_ take it."

There was a slightly corny moment of silence wherein each tried _not_ to grin broadly at the other.

"Look, you're dripping all over me," Ed complained teasingly.

"I'll go get dressed," she said as she stood up, holding the towel tightly against herself.

Ed was too busy staring to move or get up, as he probably should have done if he wanted to seem like he wasn't… well, gaping at her.

Winry frowned at him. "What are you looking at?"

"Hey, you know what? I think I've just decided something," he said to change the subject as he rose from his kneeling position and stepped out of the no-longer-dripping shower. "I've decided that I wish I hadn't been drugged when we first kissed."

"I wish that sometimes too." She shrugged. Why bring it up now?"

"Well, I've been trying to remember that exact way it went down. I'm fuzzy on the details… however, I do seem to recall that you didn't _break my nose_ on that occasion." He smirked.

"That sounds about right," Winry confirmed, half-smiling.

"I wonder why that is," he continued, still grinning, though his tone was a little more serious-sounding than intended.

"Well, there was no reason to break your nose," said Winry. "We were in a hospital, so they'd have taped you up right away. Why would you break someone's watch right in front of a watch repair shop? It's the same idea."

"So reasonable and impersonal. Do you spend a lot of time evaluating whether or not it's advantageous to hit me?"

"Would you be surprised if I did?"

"Unfortunately, not at all."

"Thought not." She grinned again, then finally walked out of the bathroom with Ed not far behind.

It seemed to Ed that she was either over her little 'moment' or she was trying to make it seem like she was. Either way, he didn't have to do anything about it, since even if it was the latter, she would probably just get annoyed at him for calling her out on her pretense.

Ed jumped onto the unmade bed and laid back, not because he wanted to relax, but because he wanted to look relaxed. He stared at the ceiling, but it was the girl in his peripheral vision that he was interested in seeing.

"What are you still in here for?" he heard her ask over the sound of her opening the noisy dresser. "You're making me suspicious."

"Why's that?" The disinterest was feigned, like the relaxed position. (As if there was a single word Winry could say at that moment which he wouldn't hang on to like his life depended on it!)

"You're just… y'know, over there. Watching me find my clothes and get dressed. All you need is 50 more pounds on your gut, a porno moustache, and a pair of binoculars, and you're the perfect creeper."

"You caught me. I also go through your trash, sit in the bushes by your window at night to watch you sleep, and steal your underwear and hang them up on my wall like trophies."

She laughed. Ed wouldn't have been surprised if it _was_ forced, and he was comforted somewhat to know that he wasn't the only one panicking about the eggshells under their feet. "I'll never understand the underwear thing. What's the appeal?"

"You don't want me to answer that."

"Well, now I want you to answer it even more!" she laughed.

"Sorry." Ed zoned out, staring away at the window, until a few minutes later Winry's hand tugging his made him come back to earth.

She had sat down cross-legged on the bed next to him. Her wet hair had been gathered up and pulled over her right shoulder, and it was beginning to challenge the opacity of her white long-sleeved tee.

"What's wrong? You look sad."

He sat up, looking away. "No, not sad."

"Mad?"

"…You could say that."

"Why? What were you thinking about just now?"

"You have three guesses, and the first two don't count. I already told you: it's that mental image that's killing me. My mind continually comes back to it."

She exhaled slowly in what was almost a sigh. "Mine too."

"You probably have it worse," he allowed. "The other thing that's pissing me off, though, is that it was so _easy_."

"What do you mean?"

"He didn't have to do anything but lay a finger on you, and it was like I jumped at the chance to break it off with you. If that's what he was trying to do… he almost succeeded. He could have won. It was so easy for him! That pisses me off almost as much as… well, the obvious."

Winry bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I don't really know how to fix that problem," she admitted.

Ed didn't have to say "me neither" for it to be understood. So, he changed the subject to something trivial. "You should brush your hair out before it air-dries. Tangles hurt."

Winry allowed the subject to be changed. It was easier than talking about the terrifying what-if that was hanging over their heads. "Yeah." She got up and grabbed the hairbrush from her dresser, then came back to the bed again. "Ed, I have a question."

"What's the question?"

"Is it gonna be weird now? Well—I mean, this already is weird, 'cause we just fought and… yeah…" By "yeah" she meant "and now we're having an irritatingly stilted conversation drifting aimlessly from pointless small talk to the worries that are really on our minds, which we keep having to dance around because we're both on tenterhooks about getting into another fight, which could easily be our last at this rate." It was probably the most specific "yeah" Winry had ever uttered. "But won't it also be weird," she continued, "since we both said I love you back there and… um."

Ed frowned. "Other people seem to be able to say I love you and it doesn't turn everything weird. _I _don't feel weird. Actually… well, let me try to get this right." He was silent for a second, then he took a breath. "Okay, look. It's kind of like how you'd feel if you said, 'Rain is wet.' Well, of course rain is wet. It was a fact _before_ you said it; saying it doesn't _make_ it a fact. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"So… since you brought it up… do _you_ feel weird now?"

"A little," she confessed. "Nervous."

"Nervous?" he repeated.

"Yes, nervous. I feel like I just gave a poor man a jar with 10,000 cenz inside and told him not to open it."

"I'm the poor man, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Well, I promise not to open your jar, Winry. There, problem solved. Now it's not weird anymore. You can relax."

She distracted herself with brushing her hair for a moment. "I wish it was so easy…" she sighed softly.

* * *

Friday morning saw Meta even more ill-looking than usual, and that was saying something, since she had a tendency to look deathly ill at all times, what with her bony figure, waxy complexion, dark eyes, and wispy, often unbrushed hair.

Luna had trained herself not to be outwardly concerned when Meta came to the breakfast table looking thusly haggard. At least the fact that she came to the breakfast table was an accomplishment. On good days, sometimes Meta even _ate_!

Today was not a good day.

Luna could tell it wasn't a good day, because Meta did that thing where she went in the bathroom, made 'sick' noises, and dumped a little water in the toilet to make it seem like she had thrown up. They had all discussed this, Ed, Al, Winry, and Luna, and had mutually agreed that this was another of Meta's ways to draw attention to herself, just like the referrals and the yelling at people. They ignored it, mostly.

Still, if it really was fake, Luna thought Meta had to be a good actress to make it sound so believable.

The ten-year-old trudged into the kitchen where Al was making bacon and Luna coffee while Joli sat on the countertop, eating a piece of buttered toast Al had given her to keep her quiet.

She sat at the table heavily and slumped over the table, looking like an old woman rather than an elementary-school-age child.

"What's wrong?" asked Luna, humoring her act even though she knew she wasn't supposed to. Al throwing her a _look _reinforced the "not supposed to" part.

"Luna…" said Meta, and Al and Luna both knew by her tone what she was going to ask. "Can I stay home from school today? Please?"

"Why?" asked Luna. "Do you have a test you forgot to study for or something?"

"Or something," said Meta darkly. The something was actually a some_one_, of course; a someone she wanted to avoid because he'd skipped out on her the previous day.  
"What's that supposed to mean?"

"None of your business, Tick."

"Don't call me that," said Luna immediately.

"Ed calls you that."

"Ed's a bad example," said Al. "As a rule, don't do anything he does."

"I don't want to go to school today," Meta repeated, getting them back to the intended subject. "Can you please just let me stay home? Just this once."

Luna and Al glanced at each other. Neither knew what to tell her. They communicated for a bit with their eyes, then finally Al shrugged and let out a sigh, then turned back to Meta. "Fine. You can stay home from school today. But you'd better make up your missed homework. And don't brag to your friends that your guardians let you skip school, or Mrs. Sisley will get in trouble."

"Whatever."

* * *

**Was this chapter filler? Fsck, I'm too tired. It's four AM as I'm posting this, and I just can't tell anymore. ABBA won't shut up, either: stupid lullaby-ish music!!**


	41. Homecoming Moment

On Sunday, the shop was closed, so Winry had a lot of time to do what he had come to Lior for in the first place: pack up her stuff. She was only taking personal items like clothes, so it wasn't as big a job as it had been when she had originally moved in: there were no tools or books she particularly wanted to bring back with her. Also, the automotive mechanic she had gotten to help her with the things she couldn't physically do from Resembool (such as automail attachments and detachments) came over to talk to her about the business; Ed elected to hang around while they were having this conversation, having learned his lesson about leaving Winry alone with people he didn't know.

His name was Irving Samos, a fairly short guy with orangey-red hair that stuck out of the baseball cap embroidered with the logo of his own shop, and striking green eyes. He was very outgoing and had a habit of touching people, clapping his hands on their shoulders, nudging them with his fist, tugging Winry's hair, etc, but he meant no harm, and at any rate, he didn't seem to realize it was obnoxious. Winry tolerated it—well, she tolerated pretty much everything, so that wasn't saying much.

They (Winry and Irving) talked about business for what must have been an hour. It was at least long enough that Ed got bored and decided to go back upstairs and keep himself entertained for a while. He achieved this by first spending some time folding and packing Winry's clothes, then, when that got boring (very quickly) Ed migrated to the living room and paced back and forth for a time. Normally if he was at home and Winry was unavailable (that is, whenever she kicked him about of the workshop she could get something done for a change), he would go talk to Al, or play with Joli, or read a book, or help with chores around the house. Of course, neither Al nor Joli was here, he had already done some chores and was sick of them, and Winry had no books around here that he could read, except for that row of black, neon-yellow, and green color-coordinated paperbacks on the bookshelf, and those were just automail manu—wait. What the hell kind of manual was published in paperback form? Paperback was mostly for fiction, wasn't it?

Intrigued, Ed went over and plucked the first book from the row. The spine said "The Black Book Vol. 1" and the author was a woman with a completely ordinary name: "Kelsey D. H. Sawyer." Ed glanced at the back cover, but it was full of stupid reviews from obscure magazines that said things like "Gripping, thrilling, edge-of-your-seat drama and suspense, with an imaginative ending," and "Loaded but not slowed down by the reader's realizations about the human psyche as Sawyer investigates the true nature and beliefs of these captivatingly human characters... A true work of art," and "Sawyer's saga leaves the reader breathless and hungry for more." Ed hated it when books didn't tell him what was inside, so he scowled at the cover, then flipped it to the first page (he could tell by the way the cover was bent and the binding was cracked that Winry had already read it at least twice) and sprawled onto the couch.

* * *

By midday, Winry finally had a break—not from work, of course (she still had plenty of that), but from Irving, who thankfully had his own shop to run, which was a blessing for Winry, who simply couldn't stand so much energy when she was already so tired from today and yesterday.

She trudged upstairs after Irving had gone and headed into the kitchen to see if Ed had made lunch, or if he hadn't, she would make her own.

"Winry," Ed called from the couch as Winry got out a pot and filled it with water to boil.

"What's up?" she asked, concentrating on lighting the grill.

"Does he ever fuck her?"

She whirled around. "What are you talking about?"

Ed waved the book in the air so she could see what he was looking at.

Winry realized it was one of the novels she kept. "Why are you reading that?"

"Found it," he said nonchalantly. "So this girl Black spends all this time fawning over, does he do the horizontal tango with her or not?"

"Who, Tori?"

"Who the hell's Tori? No, I mean Lyssa."

"Lyssa betrays Black at the end of volume two by getting him drunk, seducing him, and stealing the Book."

"So they do have sex."

"Yes, but that's not the point."

"Yes, but that's all I cared about." Ed fell silent and continued reading. "I didn't know you liked this kind of romance-y, fight-y, epic-y stuff. It's somewhat interesting, actually. But at the same time, isn't this what you call 'smut'? Why do you like it?"

"You just invented three new words, Ed," Winry pointed out. "And so what if I like Kelsey Sawyer? She's a good author, even if some of her stuff does get kinda… racy at times."

"I just read a page and a half about this guy's hard-on, Win. How does that qualify as '_kinda_ racy'?"

Winry turned pink. "Well, don't read it if you don't want to."

"No way. It's interesting!"

"That's _all_?"

"Uh… yeah," he said, not really catching her tone.

Winry shut off the stove (safety first!) and walked over to the couch, leaning over the back of it and looking down at Ed. He raised his eyebrows at her but didn't react, and after a moment, he got comfortable again and continued reading.

Winry walked around the couch and leaned her chin on Ed's shoulder.

* * *

_Breathlessly, he pulled away and looked into Lyssa's eyes. "There. Now do you understand?"_

_Her lips, seeming slightly pinker than usual due to that furious entanglement of their lips and tongues, curved in her trademark coy smirk. "Well, I suppose you've really taught me a lesson, Black."_

"_I'm not going to leave you behind, Lyssa. Please tell me you understand that. No teasing, no jokes, just…" _

_She silenced him with another blood-igniting kiss, teasing his lips a little with her tongue and then pulling away before he'd drunk his fill of that sweet wine. "I do understand, Black. No teasing, no jokes, just us. I trust you." _

_He smiled a little and hugged her close, loving the feel of her softness against his body. "And I you."_

_She, too, could feel every inch of him, including the several inches of him that were bulging impressively against her thigh. "Is your trust worth something more, Black?" Her hand moved down to cup him through his jeans._

_Like a rubber band snapping, Black released her and backed away. "You know why we can't do that right now, Lyssa." _

"_I don't really think Johnny Heaven is watching us ALL the time. I mean, he may be a powerful guy, but he's not God." _

"_He might as well be!" Lyssa jumped. Black lowered his tone. "Look, we just can't risk it. Trust me, waiting will be worth it. Once all this is over, I'll buy a ring and make an honest woman out of you, I promise."_

_

* * *

_

Ed pulled the pages over his chest so she could no longer read. "You know, reading over my shoulder like is really obnoxious."

"You do realize that I've already read that whole thing, right? It's not like I'm going to suddenly jump back in shock and yell 'How can you READ this garbage?!'"

Ed rolled his eyes. "It's a bit different when you're _right there_."

"How so?"

"It's just like… you know… it's weird," he struggled. "Knowing you're reading the same thing as me at the same time and it's not completely innocent like homework, either. Because we're both, y'know… thinking about it. At the same time. It's just weird."

"You don't think it's kind of… sexy?"

"Should I be thinking that?"

"Oh, Ed, come off it. We both know you aren't so innocent. You're a terrible actor."

"That's right. You've soiled my innocence. You even have me reading smutty action romance novels. I'm a changed man. Are you happy now?"

She grinned. "Yes."

Ed gave her a dry look. "You're supposed to be shaken by the realization that you've soiled my innocence. Then you're supposed to repent."

"I repent," she said insincerely. "I'm sorry I soiled your innocence. Can I at least reap the benefits of my handiwork?"

"Benefits?" he repeated blankly.

"Oh, now you're just overdoing it." Then she kissed him.

* * *

"Hey, Brother, Winry. Shh, Joli's asleep already. Me and Luna thought you'd be back earlier. What took you? Did you get all of the stuff you needed in Lior? Did you have enough money for postage for all that stuff?"

"Yeah." Ed draped his red coat over one of the kitchen chairs, then collapsed into it. "The train got delayed three hours."

"What did you do all that time?" Al asked as Winry made to sit down too, but Ed grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap. Al didn't look surprised to see the sudden display of affection, but his face did flicker into a smile for a millisecond.

"We just, uh, hung out in the station," Ed responded. Then he lowered his tone and amended that sentence for Winry's ear only. "In the station bathrooms, shivering at the cold tiles on my skin, but at least your hands were warm…"

"Shh!" she hissed at him, glancing at Al, who was looking at them curiously.

"I'll be right back," said Al. "I was just about to take this tea to Meta before you guys walked in."

"Tea?" Ed repeated. "Tell her to get it herself. She's got legs."

"She's sick… we think," Al told him. "She won't get out of bed except to throw up, poor kid, but Luna says that stress can sometimes affect the body physically," ("That sounds correct," said Winry) "and Luna thinks it's because of school, since Meta asked not to go to school on Friday or today. Luna says that's probably what Meta wants to avoid, and I thought so too, so we didn't make her go."

"Maybe it's just a stomach bug," Ed suggested.

"For four days straight?" Winry responded. "That's dangerous."

"Luna tried to call the doctor, but his wife said he went to the next town over with a family whose kid got attacked by some kind of animal and he hasn't come back yet. So for the time being, we have to wait for either him to get back home, or wait for Meta to get better."

"Or rush her to the hospital," said Winry.

"That's probably where she's headed either way," said Al with a heavy sigh as he took the cup of tea out of the kitchen and left Ed and Winry alone in the kitchen for the moment.

"I wonder where Luna is, anyway," said Winry.

"Maybe she's putting Joli down."

"Joli's a good sleeper. How long could it possibly take?"

"Maybe she went to sleep, too."

"I wish I could do the same," Winry groaned, leaning forward (away from where she could accidentally hit Ed) and stretching her arms out. "That was a really tiring train ride."

"Oh, yes," said Ed with a hint of sarcasm. "Especially the part where you slept the whole way, using me as a pillow."

"It wouldn't be the first time."

Ed frowned. He didn't like the memories of the Fever quarantine that that sentence brought to mind. He changed the subject. "Anyway, if you're so tired, just go to sleep. You know where my room is."

"Funny how the room situation worked out," she said mildly.

"We should just give up the pretense and start calling it 'our' room," Ed agreed. "We're not fooling anybody, really."

"That's not what I meant. Actually, I meant 'Isn't it lucky how we happen to share the room on the sparsely populated top floor, and not only that, but the only other person who sleeps on that floor happens to be in the room that's as far away as is physically possible?'"

"That is an interesting thought. We must be lucky, I guess." He fell silent and rested his face on her shoulder, breathing softly onto her skin.

"… Aren't you going to let go of me so I can get up and go to bed?"

"Not yet," he whispered as if something important was happening that wouldn't happen if he didn't whisper. "Shh."

"What are you waiting for?" she asked, lowering her voice too.

"I'm not waiting. I'm enjoying the moment. Shh."

Winry had heard him say that before. "What is the moment exactly?"

"The moment when we got home, Winry, and there was noplace else we had to be. No Philosopher's Stone to find, no homunculi to kill, no notes from Haven turning up on the doorstep, no various circumstances splitting us to the four corners of the globe and then dragging us back again. We have nothing to wait for except the rest of our lives."


	42. Duly Noted

Melinda, or Meta, or whoever the hell she was nowadays, paced back and forth in her room, her trembling hands clenched into fists. She looked angry, she looked sad, she looked scared. She looked like a wild beast on drugs.

Nobody wanted to talk to her like this of course, and Eli continually pointed this out in between his urgings that she do certain things, such as his favorite phrase in the world: _Tell your family what's happening._

Melinda didn't want to tell her family what was happening. What she really wanted right now was a drink, actually. If she were older and wiser she probably would have recognized this as a bad sign, but nobody had ever explained addiction to her. Nobody had ever sat her down and told her what alcohol would do to her body. That it would make her sick, that it would give her headaches, that it would destroy her body from the inside out. That it would make Eli go away.

She didn't know about tolerance; she just knew that it took more and more of drinking the nasty alcohol to make Eli's voice disappear.

She didn't know about withdrawal. She didn't understand why she was shaky and even more irritable than usual, or why Eli's voice seemed louder than usual. And she hadn't foreseen that one of the consequences of playing sick to stay home from school would be that Al, Luna, Winry, and Ed would be checking on her at all hours, preventing her from doing her _usual routine._

Someone knocked on the door. "Meta?"

"This had better be life-threateningly important," she growled at Luna.

"How do you feel right now?"

"Annoyed."

"I brought dinner. Do you want something?"

"No."

"Are you _sure_?"

"Are you _stupid_?"

Luna opened the door, set the tray on Melinda's dresser, and took the untouched one from breakfast. "Here it is, if you change your mind later."

Melinda never looked over.

* * *

"God, this is so frustrating!" Luna ranted as she dropped the whole tray of Meta's breakfast into the sink with a crash and clatter.

"We know," said Al from the table. "We're frustrated too."

"I think you broke something there," Winry added.

Luna leaned against the counter and covered her face with her hands. "I'm not one to get easily riled, but AAAARGH!" She kicked the cabinet behind her.

"Please don't break that too," said Winry.

"Stop worrying," said Ed. "If she breaks anything, we'll just fix it. It's not like you or I have never broken anything in our entire lives."

"I need a hug, I need my mommy, I need an aspirin, I need sushi," Luna whined, succumbing to childishness for a moment. She went to the icebox and opened it. "We need to get sushi."

"Where will we get sushi from?" Al asked.

"I don't know if you've noticed," said Ed, "but Amestris is landlocked."

"I need sushi," Luna repeated. "Sushi is my comfort food. I need sushi."

"You don't _need_—" Ed attempted to tell her.

Winry rapped him on the head with her spoon (after cleaning it in her mouth, of course). "Hush. You don't knock a girl's comfort food, okay? When she needs it, she needs it."

"You're not my mother," he snapped, rubbing his head.

"That's correct," she said loftily. "Your mother didn't hit you."

"Come on, Ed, Winry, don't fight," Al pleaded as he stood up and brought his plate to the sink. "It is broken," he said softly to Luna only. "The plate, I mean."

"Sorry," she whispered back, folding her arms around herself and staring at the floor.

He patted her shoulder once, then started picking the shards out of the sink while Ed and Winry struck up a heated argument in the background.

Luna kept an eye on them for a moment, then leaned in Al's ear. "In ten seconds, the fight will migrate through to the living room."

"Ugh! You're so annoying!" Winry burst out. She got up and stormed away—into the living room.

Ed followed her. "Where the fuck are you going?"

"Good call," said Al.

"In another five seconds, Winry's going to run back through here to get to the stairs," Luna told him.

"WHY are you FOLLOWING me?" they heard Winry shout.

"Because we're not done!" Ed fired back.

"I say we are!"

"Well, I say we're not!"

"God, Ed, you're so childish!" Winry came back into the kitchen, Ed hot on her heels, and stomped loudly on every single stair as she ascended.

"As soon as she gets to their room, she's going to run in, slam the door, and lock it," Luna predicted.

_SLAM. _

_Rattle—BANG._

_Bang, bang, bang, BANG._

"Winry! Unlock the damn door!"

"No!"

Al laughed. "You must be psychic."

Luna smiled. "That, _and_ they're shockingly predictable."

_Bang, bang, BANG, BANG, BANG. _

"WINRY! FOR FUCK'S SAKE! OPEN IT!"

"ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

"Edward's going to hit that door for a few minutes until he gets bored or his hand hurts," said Luna, "and then at some point Winry will open up. A few seconds later, we'll hear the door slam closed again, and at that point everything will be eerily silent."

"Don't want to speculate too much about that part?" Al joked.

"Oh, I'm sure you have your theories, too," she teased back, then she sighed and took on a more serious expression. "You all are so lucky you have one another. I…" She stopped abruptly.

"You what?"

"I'm not going to say something stupid, whiny, and incorrect like 'I never had anyone like that.'"

Al passed a smile her way. "You know, you are a teenager. It's okay to want to whine sometimes. Sometimes you want to whine a lot. It's allowed, Luna."

She laughed. "Whining is for the mundanes. I can find much more productive ways to vent." She pushed herself away from the counter and headed for the front door.

"Where are you going?" Al called after her.

"Sushi!" she called back. "Come on!"

* * *

"Hey, look, Ingalls's coming down the road!"

"Where's he been for the last week?"

"I heard his brother got sick."

"He got 'tacked by a rabid chicken and had to get stitches."

"I thought it was a rabid squirrel. An' it took his eyes out."

"Well, I heard 'is brother fell off a cow."

"It was his _sister,_ you idiots."

"He got a sister?"

"Yeah, she's like four."

"No, she's a newborn, I think. My mom called 'er a baby."

"No, 'is sister's twenty, stupid! She was drinking and she got run over by a ghost tractor in my neighbor's field."

"Wait, so 'is drunk baby sister got attacked by a rabid chicken that took 'er eyes out?"

"Yeah, Jacob, keep up for Chrissakes."

"It was a SQUIRREL!"

"No, cow!"

"Ghost tractor!"

When Max walked into class that morning, he was mobbed by pretty much everyone in the entire fifth grade, including a few kids from Mrs. Appel's class, who were apparently more eager about gossip than learning.

Unfortunately, the one person Max really wanted to see was nowhere to be found.

After calmly explaining that yes, his sister was okay, and no, she hadn't been hit by a ghost tractor, and yes, she'd needed stitches, and no, there were no rabid animals involved, and yes, she still had both her eyes, Max finally was relieved of the crowd when Ms. Pomme called everyone to order and sent Mrs. Appel's kids to their own classroom.

He sat in his seat and quickly scribbled a note: "wheres lindy? she sic or what?" He folded this into eighths, wrote FOR SYIERA on the front, then passed it to the girl next to him and pointed at Syiera so she'd know he wanted it to pass it to her.

An hour later, or that's what it felt like, the note came back to him with Syiera's name crossed out and his written over it. In Syiera's purple hand, it said "i think so, shes gone since you been gone and we dont know why……………" Below that, Ashley had apparently gotten ahold of the note and had written "NOSY!!!!!!" in big letters, and then Tricia had added to this with: "what due you care about Lindys being absent eh?? busy body…" Those girls really _were_ inseparable.

He caught Syiera (by some miracle, _alone_) during recess to talk to her more in depth. "Do you know what's wrong with her? Is she really sick?"

Syiera frowned in thought. "Well, I haven't really seen her, but I went to her house on Monday afternoon because she didn't go to Trisha's party, but I didn't see here. Her brother answered the door (OMIGOSH and he's SO cute!) and he was kinda, um, surly, I guess is the word. And what he said was Lindy can't come to play and also go away. And then this girl came to the door and hit him over the head, which I thought was kinda extreme, but the girl was really nice and also pretty and I wish my hair was blonde like hers and long. But it's not. It's red. My hair, I mean."

"Focus," said Max. "Your hair's fine how it is. So, ya didn' talk to Lindy?"

She shook her head. "Uh-uh."

Max scowled. What was he going to do?

"So…" said Syiera slowly. "Um, if you don't mind me asking…"

"Ya wanna know why I missed school," he said, heaving a sigh. "Look. Long story short, my sister got hurt by our bull. My mom insist'd that we hadda go to the doctors, and so we were gone from school. And Hannah is fine and she got some stitches in'r face and there's none else wrong with'r."

Syiera nodded, smiling. "I'm glad everything's okay with you guys, then."

"Yeah," he said unconvincingly, thinking of a thousand things about which she had no idea… the fights his parents had when they thought no one was listening, Rob's smoking, Eric's nightmares and anxiety problems, Hannah's attention problem, and of course, the way everyone at home moved; slouching, tired, and sick of living. "Yeah. Everything's okay."

* * *

**I'm so sick of late updates. These deadlines are frustrating and I don't feel like there's as much reader interest, so it's hard to get excited… hence the filler after filler after filler. Fuck, I hate this. When does it END?**


	43. Plan?

**Um, okay, just to add a little addendum to the closing AN of last chapter: I haven't given up on ENATAgain. I do know where I'm going with this fic. **

**I was a bit upset last chapter because of the deadlines getting in the way, but the real problem has nothing to do with ENATAgain or you readers. I was projecting because in real life I'm feeling trapped because of my mother forcing me to go to Driver's Ed, get a license, get a job, etc, etc, and I'm gerascophobic, which means that **_**any**_** age-related milestone is terrifying for me. (In case you don't know and don't want to Google it: Gerascophobia is fear of old people and aging.) The pressure is frustrating and makes it hard to write these chapters in time for deadlines to be met, hence my annoyance last chapter. I shouldn't have written that at all. (And if you're reading this in the future, obviously you can see that I didn't give up on ENATAgain last chapter.) **

**Thank you for your supportive and understanding reviews. I'll try harder to make this fic 'get to the point' because there DEFINITELY is one. There's even a whole epilogue, (as only one person besides myself knows :D You know who you are.)**

* * *

After school, Max ran home (nearly getting smeared by a train as he crossed the tracks in his rush), dumped his backpack just inside the door, shouted his intentions to leave at his mother (she yelled something back that sounded like "Don't miss dinner!"), and ran all the way across town. He didn't know where Lindy lived, but he did know that Lindy lived with Ed Elric, and apparently also with some girl with long blonde hair (if Syiera could be believed). He did what any sane small-town kid would have done in this situation: went to Lucy's Diner, where all the gossip in Resembool originated.

Lucy herself was in the house, chatting it up with a few of the other old maids in town, but Max didn't interrupt her. Instead, he found the waitress on duty—June Ryder, Lucy's niece—and asked her.

"Ed Elric and a blonde girl?" June repeated. "Do you mean Winry Rockbell? Or Luna Turner? Both of them are blonde and live with Edward, as far as I can tell."

"Maybe," said Max uncertainly. "Wait, Rockbell as in Rockbell Automail?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Do they still live there?" He knew Pinako Rockbell had died three or four months ago, but he hadn't heard if the Rockbell automail shop was still in operation or not.

"Pretty sure, yeah," said June.

"Awesome!" Max hugged her—hey, June was pretty, okay!?—and grinned. "I know where I'm going now. Thanks, June!" He ran out of the diner, full of morbid energy, and ran most of the way to Rockbell Automail.

When he knocked on the door, he bounced on the balls of his feet until it was answered by a platinum-blonde girl with her hair in low pigtails. She was wearing a floor-length strapless black dress split to the hip with jeans and a white turtleneck underneath, but this was unsurprising, because Max had seen Luna all of twice in his lifetime and already knew she was a freak.

"Hi," she said. "You're not a poltergeist, are you?"

Max took a step back. "No. Are you?"  
She glanced down at herself as if checking to see that she was still corporeal. "I should be very displeased if I was and no one told me yet." She looked back at him. "If you're not a poltergeist, then tell me, why are you here?"

"I'm lookin' for Lindy."

She stared at him blankly.

"Me. Lin. Da."

She still had no idea who he was talking about.

"Melinda _Erlich_? Do she live here?"

"Oh!" said Luna suddenly. "Meta, you mean?"

"Yeah," Max confirmed, feeling stupid for not using her real name in the first place. "She live here or not?"

"Yes, she lives here," said Luna. There was obviously a 'but' coming… "But she's sick. She can't come to play with you right now, little-kid-whose-name-I-didn't-get."

"Max," he said automatically. "Lindy's okay, though, right?"

Luna hesitated. "Wait here for a sec, Max." She walked away from the door, leaving it open, and went to talk to someone in the living room, assuming the layout of the house was the same as his own (which looked to be the case from what he could see from here). It was a male voice, but not the one he remembered for Ed.

"Who is it?" the mystery boy asked.

Luna explained about Max, then asked, "What should I tell him? What did Edward tell that other girl who came by on Monday?"

"I don't know," said the mystery boy. "I wasn't there."

"Well, duh, you weren't there. Didn't Edward tell you what he said, though? I mean, you _do_ talk to him about pretty much everything."

"Actually, I found out about the girl from Winry. She said the girl left after they told her that Meta couldn't play with her right now."

"Well, then tell the kid that."

"I just told him that and he didn't leave."

"Well, what am I supposed to do about it that you can't?"

"Good point." A minute later, Luna came back to the door. "I'll be honest with you, Max, we don't know what's wrong with Meta. She's very ill, but we don't really know what she has, mostly because she avoids everyone and won't tell us her symptoms. So, I don't know if that answers your question 'is Meta okay?' but that's all I can tell you."

Max bit his lip anxiously, leaning forward and peering through the open door behind her as if expecting to see his (not-so-friendly) 'friend' sitting at the kitchen table and waving at him, saying "Just kidding! I'm fine!"

"Um, and one more thing," said Max suddenly, looking back at Luna's face.

Luna's eyes were glazed over and she was staring unblinkingly at one of Max's freckles, but she quickly snapped back to attention. "Yea—yes?"

"Luna, you write po'try and stuff, right?"

"Yes…"

"So you're smart!"

"I know."

"So can ya help me with som'm?"

"Depends. Is it some kind of homework that you should be doing on your own?"

"No, nothin' like that, promise. I'm just… no good at sayin' stuff, and my parents was no help."

"What is this about, exactly?"

Max shifted his weight to one foot. "Um… do I hafta explain while standin' on the doorstep? It's kinda compl'acated."

"Oh!" Luna nodded several times in quick succession, then she leaned back in the doorway and shouted for the benefit of the other occupants of the house: "I'M LEAVING! BE BACK AT SOME POINT IN THE NEAR FUTURE!"

"DON'T LET ANY TREES FALL ON YOUR HEAD!" called the mystery male voice from earlier.

"IF YOU HEAD INTO TOWN, REMEMBER WE'RE OUT OF EGGS!" yelled a female voice from the basement.

"GOT IT!" Luna shouted back.

As Luna stepped out and shut the front door, Max distinctly heard Ed bellow, "AND STAY OUT!"

Luna laughed.

"Why'd that person warn ya 'bout trees?" Max asked. "'S it a real danger to you in patic'lar?"

"Actually, there was a tree incident once," Luna said sheepishly. "Ah… anyway, let's get going."

* * *

Ed and Al sat on opposite ends of the couch with their feet up while Joli sat in the middle. Ed had gotten a piece of scrap metal from the shop, and the brothers were competing to see who could transmute the more intricate animal out of it, much to Joli's enjoyment.

Al handed his latest work to Joli. "What is it?" he asked her.

Joli turned it over in her little hands a few times, examining it from all angles. "Cow!"

"That's right! And what does a cow say?"

"Moo!"

Ed and Al laughed. "Okay," said Al, "now hand it to Brother."

She held it out to him. "Here, Brother!"

"Not _that_ brother!" Al chuckled.

"Give the cow to _this_ Brother," said Ed in the third person, holding out his hand.

"'Kay!"

Now it was Ed's turn to examine the cow's craftsmanship. "Nice," he said after a moment. "But aren't its ears disproportioned?"

"Ran out of material," said Al. "Equivalent exchange."

"I see," Ed said. "Well, my turn now." He put his hands together, there was a flash of light, and when it was over, he handed the new animal to Joli. "What's this one?"

"Um… um… um… Sheep!"

"Good job! What does a sheep say?"

"Baa!"

Ed and Al clapped.

At some point during this conversation, Luna had walked in the front door, gotten herself a cup of tea (the water was already hot in the kettle on the stove; Al had made himself and Ed some a little while ago), and entered the living room while Al was in the middle of transmuting the piece of metal again.

He handed it to Joli.

"What did little big brother make?" asked Ed with false curiosity.

"A twain! A twain!"

"What's that?" Ed asked again.

"Big brother doesn't understand you," Al informed her.

"Twaaaaaain!" Joli whined.

"Train?" Al asked.

Joli nodded and sniffed. "_I say_ dat a'redy!"

"Tell Brother 'train,'" Al told her, enunciating pointedly.

Joli turned to Ed again. "Twain."

Ed cupped a hand around his ear. "What? I don't understand."

"Train," Al said again.

"Train," Joli repeated. "Brother make a train."

"Oh, TRAIN!" Ed exclaimed, as if he hadn't already figured that out by now. "You're right! Brother made a train!"

"What noise does a train make?" Al queried.

"Choo, choo!"

"Yay!" chorused Ed and Al in unison.

"Yay!" said Joli when she figured out they were celebrating.

"You guys look ridiculous," Luna noted.

"Oh, shut up," Ed said, turning red when he realized they'd been caught in their moment of silliness.

"Luna!" said Al, hopping over the back of the couch to hug her unnecessarily. "When did you get back from your walk?"

"Five minutes ago, and I need your guys' help with something, okay?"

"Us guys? Why am I included?" Ed complained. "I don't even _like_ you that much!"

"Shut up, Luna is a very nice and caring and hardworking person and you know it," said Winry.

Ed twisted to see Winry standing in the doorway a few feet behind Al and Luna. "Winry! Where did you come from?"

"Came upstairs because I heard the kettle whistling a few minutes ago and wanted tea. Luna, what's this thing you want their help with?"

"Well, I was going to ask you too, so this makes explaining things quicker!" said Luna.

"Explaining _what _things?" Ed demanded impatiently.

"Okay, look, everyone take a seat. This gets somewhat complicated…"

XXXXXXXX

After it was explained to them by Luna, everyone (including not just Ed, Al, and Winry, but pretty much anyone who was told about it) agreed that it was the best plan they had ever heard and wanted to help get it ready. (Winry and Luna had found out about the potential for others getting involved when someone stopped them in the market, having overheard them discussing the plan, and asked for more details.)

Al's current job was to call everyone on a list of people in Resembool who Luna knew had telephones in their houses (Luna had been the one to make the list originally, with Winry's help for the ones Luna forgot) and tells them about what was happening on Friday.

It was a big job, which was why he was mostly exempted from the household chores for the remainder of the week, while Ed, Winry, and Luna picked up the slack.

"Yes. Friday night. … Eight-ish. … No, don't be concerned about any of that… Yes. Okay. Bye. …Okay, Winry, what is it you need that requires you stand in front of me while I'm trying to make calls?"

"Hand me the phone for a sec, Al," said Winry, holding her hand out for the receiver. "I need to make a call."

"Okay, but make it quick. I have practically half the town left to call on this list Luna gave me."

"Oh, I'll be quick, I promise." She began dialing.

"Who are you calling?" Al asked as she waited for the other person to pick up.

"Actually, I'm calling a store. I want to place an order."

"An order of…?"

"Candles."

"Candles?"

"Yes, candles. Just trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"What—?"

Winry held up a silencing finger and spoke into the phone. "Hi, is this…? Yes. This is Winry Rockbell—… right…. Mm-hmm…. Yes…. Candles…. No, no, no, nothing like that. I'm thinking small, unscented—yeah, just little things. Um… well, this is going to sound weird, but I need like, eight dozen. Yeah. No, you heard me correctly…. Well, it's a long story, but basically—oh, did she already come by? No, no, yeah, that's correct. And did she explain what we're planning to you already? Oh, good. Then, you'll understand why—yeah. Basically, I want everyone who's there to be able to have one of these candles. …Yeah, I know…. Wait, WHAT? No way! That's too much—… No. No, I couldn't—" She stopped midsentence and pulled the receiver away from her ear, then stared at it.

"Hung up?" Al guessed.

"…Yeah."

"So what happened?"

"He's giving me eight dozen candles… free."

"Sounds expensive."

"You can say that again! I can't believe this! He's gotta be crazy!" She hung up the phone, then pulled it off the hook again and began dialing "I'm calling him back."

Al grabbed the receiver from her and hung it up before she was through turning the first number. "No!"

"What's with you?" she asked.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Winry! It's a nice thing that guy's doing for you, okay? So don't mess it up."

Winry gave it a moment of thought. "Well, it _is_ his merchandise… I guess you're right, Al."

"I _am_ right. Always. It's amazing how little everyone else listens to me, really."

Winry laughed. "Well, here, you can finish your call list now, Al, I'm done. And the luminaria are going to be _great._"


	44. The Butterfly Effect

**First order of business: I don't know where the phone is in the Rockbell house. I don't know if it was ever seen in the Rockbell house in the manga. At any rate, I'm putting it on the wall in the kitchen, since it's long been established that the kitchen is the center of activity for the house. **

**Second order of business: This chapter is late because it's the last chapter of ENATAgain. Yeah, I know… feels too soon. But ENATAgain has reached the 100k-words milestone (which, if you recall, was where ENAT stopped) and has gotten there just in time for the ending I've been excited for since the beginning. Thank you for reading thus far!**

**Third order of business: I got a very upsetting anonymous review on July 6. This person was misinformed and/or did not read attentively and got confused about the controversial Chapter 39 of ENATAgain. The truly annoying part was that whoever it was that sent the review was apparently afraid to use their real account to send it, which means that I was unable to PM that person and explain the misunderstanding. Hopefully that person is still reading and will benefit from me spelling this out: Charles kissed Winry ONCE. And she broke his nose for it. Charles does not kiss her "every time they meet" because after the first time, she would have (almost literally) castrated him for it. She didn't call the cops on him because it was only that one time and she's rational enough that she didn't want to start a big court case (thus trapping her in Lior, because she and Ed would be key witnesses) over something that seemed to be a one-time thing (which it was, since Charles isn't liable to come back after seeing how afraid Winry was of Ed's lividity). Anonymous reader, next time you decide to make such a rash comment as "Winry of ENATAgain, screw you," please make sure you know what's going on. Better yet, go ahead and be as mean as you want, just use your FFnet account so I don't have to go to these great lengths to try to contact you.**

**Fourth order of business: Sorry about the in-chapter footnotes in this. I know it might be a little distracting, but I find them necessary, given how big this chapter is.**

* * *

It was Friday afternoon. Meta was still doing the 'sick' game, but she didn't look nearly as terrible as she'd looked earlier in the week, so they had given her a couple acetaminophen and were counting on her being well enough to function long enough for this plan to work.

The phone in Rockbell Automail had never been subjected to so much continuous usage in its life. As Luna fielded what felt like the hundredth call concerning the specifics of "The Plan" (as it had oh-so-uncleverly been dubbed by Ed) she found herself wishing she could get away with running away to a dark, secluded corner and crying. Not that she had any qualms about doing it from a social standpoint—she just knew it would be a waste of time, since the phone would likely ring in five minutes anyway, and Luna was currently on phone duty.

She turned around after saying goodbye to Mr. Ferguson and leaned against the wall beside the phone, watching Ed as he unpacked the candles Winry had ordered a few days ago. Mr. MacMillan, the owner of the candle shop who had given the order to Winry free of charge, had gone out of his way to make sure that they had enough for The Plan to work, much to the befuddlement of the teenage residents of the Rockbell house, but Mr. MacMillan had handwaved the issue and said simply that it was "for a good cause." Winry had supposed that maybe Mr. MacMillan was just _one of those people_, and the others had reluctantly agreed that there didn't seem to be any reason for it. (Meta could have probably figured out the reason, if she had been told about it, since 'MacMillan' happened to be the last name of the friend whose birthday party she had missed the previous week—however, since The Plan was never revealed to Meta, this incident of charity was never comprehended.)

"What?" Ed asked when he realized she was staring at him.

"Nothing."

"Didn't look like nothing," he contradicted under his breath. "Hey, Tick," he said in a tone meant for her to hear, "why do you look so tired today, hm?"

"Ahh… I couldn't sleep last night."

"Why not?"

"Too panicked about today. Wondering if it's gonna work, if we're doing the right thing, if this is a bad idea…"

Before Ed could respond, the phone rang again and Luna had to answer, so Ed went back to his job unpacking the candles.

The person Luna was speaking to filibustered for so long that by the time Luna got off the phone, Ed had unpacked a whole box of candles, Al had already brought them out to the front lawn, where he and Winry were setting up the luminaria (Winry's idea), and Ed was feeding Joli a snack of cheese and crackers and sending her back outside to play under Al and Winry's supervision.

"You're right," Luna sighed once she'd (finally) hung up. "I need a nap."

Ed put the cheese away and withdrew a small white box. "You really think this is a bad idea?" he asked her.

"A little," she admitted. "Or at the very least, idealistic… It was Max's idea originally. I'm concerned that this will end up being just another nail in the coffin for her. She's _sick_! This stress and grief is making her physically _ill_! Who are we to think that this is something that we can counteract with words and empty shoulder pats? It's just… I love her… I love her like the sister my parents never gave me. And if this fails, I'm afraid this situation will only get worse…"

Ed leaned against the wall on the other side of the phone, opened the box, and handed Luna a sushi before taking one for himself. "Hmm. I'm glad you two got this sushi the other day. Sushi is good."

Luna rolled her eyes. "Non sequitur much?"

"If I tell you what I really think, are you going to get mad at me? Or cry?"

"I don't cry," she informed him, laughing a bit. "And look, I'm unarmed. Unless you count salmon as a weapon. Edward, you spend too much time with Winry for your own good."

"Ah."

"…I was joking."

"I know. I was just thinking."

"Ah. Well, I'll leave you to it then." She fell silent and chewed her piece of sushi contemplatively.

"You know what your problem is?" Ed burst out suddenly, making a correspondingly sudden gesture of annoyance in Luna's peripheral vision.

"I can't spell 'occurrence'?" she guessed. "I've never seen a chimpanzee? I'm slightly nearsighted?"

"You have no _faith_!"

She rolled her eyes. "I beg to differ; I believe in loads of things. And anyway, who are you to talk, Mr. Screw God I've Got Science?"

He seemed to be stuck somewhere between pissed and what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about for a moment. "What the fuck does God have to do with it?"

She stared at him until he got it.

"OH! Wha—no! I didn't mean that kind of faith. I use 'gullibility' to describe the condition of believing in gods. (You should get in the habit, too.) No, what I meant was, you have no faith in _yourself…_ Uh, no, wait, that's a cliché. I meant, you don't believe in… stuff… that you do… that's smart… and will work. Shit, this is NOT coming out right. Gimme a sec."

"You mean I should be more confident in this plan because I should trust in my own abilities to—"

"Shut up!" Ed barked at her, scowling. "I'll redeem my own verbal slip-ups by myself, thank you!"

"Go ahead," she said amiably.

"You're all doubt-y and will-this-work?-y and most of all, _whiny_," he ranted. "You should be less concerned about _whether_ this will work and more focused on _how_ this will work. If there's one thing that I've learned in my whole life, it's that whining gets you nowhere! And hard work pays off as long as you have faith in your_self_. There is no God and there are no magical fix-it-quick remedies—those are just placebos that'll fill your mind with mush and false faith so you'll follow the pied piper just like everyone else, but guess what? The children who followed the pied piper _died_. So learn their lesson." He opened and closed his mouth a little like a guppy, then seemed to decide he was done with his speech and stormed out of the room, taking the sushi box with him.

"Big words don't change the fact that the dough is always better than the cookies," [1] Luna contradicted under her breath.

* * *

"Meta!" Winry called. "Would you come here for a second?"

A loud grunt of recognition emitted from the direction of Meta's bedroom.

Four teenagers and one preadolescent held their breaths as they listened to Meta noisily heading out of her room and into the hall. Winry turned to Ed, Luna, and Al and shooed them away, hissing, "Go! And for God's sake, act natural!" She aimed the latter comment at the visibly uneasy Max, who was shifting his weight from foot to foot and looking at everything on or around the porch except Winry.

"Why are you here?" Meta shouted, ignoring Winry entirely as soon as she caught sight of him standing in the door. "What, are you coming to rub it in my face that you stood me up?"

Max held up his hands, palms out in surrender. "I'm sorry!"

"And here I didn't think it was possible for anyone to be more of a dickhead than you've been—yet somehow you've managed! Well, congratu-fuckin'-lations! You _win_! Happy?"

"Meta!" Winry shouted, scandalized. "What are you talking about?"

Both of them ignored her. "I didn' mean it!" Max asserted. "I swear! Linds, please, gimme a chance! I'll esplain!"

"Oh, YEAH? You'll EXPLAIN? Why don't you explain to Idiot here—" she gestured to Winry— "all about how you asked me to meet you for some stupid reason or other, then totally DISAPPEARED on me even though I waited for HOURS?"

"Meta—" Winry tried to intervene.

"Winry," Luna interrupted. She'd come to see what all the commotion was. "I got this. Trust me."

"Ah… okay?"

Luna gestured for Winry to leave and for Max to step back from the door, then bent down so she was right in Meta's face. "Listen to me, Mee-mee, okay? Just listen. You trust me, right?"

"…not a freakin' baby, you know…" she muttered.

"Your friend here has a very good reason for missing out on that prior engagement, and—"

"I can't believe it, you talked to my friends?" Meta burst out, disgusted. "What kind of lowlife would invade someone's privateness like that? Are the others in on it? Don't lie to me."

Luna was unprovoked. "I never lie and I'm not lying when I say that this boy has no ill intentions toward you. Please allow him to explain the situation to you fully. I also believe he has some additional unfinished business."

"I couldn't care less about his 'additional unfinished business,' Bigwords McStupidface! And anyway, I'm sick, so I don't have to talk to anyone."

"Well, that's a terrible excuse," said Winry. While Luna had been speaking quietly to Meta, Winry had come back to see how things were going, and Ed and Al had joined her. (Joli had followed the crowd as well, which meant there were now seven people standing around in an entranceway that comfortably fitted three.)

"The rules in this house have been the same in this house my whole life," Ed told her. "If you're healthy enough to yell, play, or bonk your annoying little brother on the head, you're healthy enough to do all of the unfun things too."

Meta made a face at him.

"Plus, holding grudges is bad for your health," Al added. "So maybe you could benefit from a dose of insight."

Meta still didn't look convinced. She tried to make a break for it, but Luna seized her arm and stopped her dead.

Luna then switched strategies. "You will go. You will go now. If you do not go, I will drag you kicking and screaming and you will STILL go. If you refuse to go, I will push you out the door and lock the bolt. No more of this shit. I won't tolerate it."

Luna then proceeded to all but shove Meta out the front door, then she made good on her promise and proceeded to lock it.

As soon as that was done, Luna's apparent anger melted away. "Okay, we've only got about half an hour until showtime, everyone! Let's check over the supplies one last time. Remember, people will probably start showing up here as soon as Meta and Max are out of sight, so this is the last call to make sure everything is perfect!" After making that speech, she bounded into the living room and busied herself doing something semi-noisy.

"Y'know…" said Ed to Winry, "when you take the mood swings into consideration, it's like, if you didn't hit people with wrenches or cry at them, and if you were crazy, weirdly bleach-blonde, too skinny, and flat-chested…"

"If you finish that sentence, Ed, I'll… I'll… I'll develop a nasty habit of surreptitiously groping your man-junk under the table whenever we're in a public place at a time when you can't excuse yourself. Imagine how torturous that would be."

His eyes widened to approximately the size of dinner plates. "Please never do that."

She forced a straight face and jabbed his chest dramatically with her finger. "You're on notice."

"Yes'm," he joked in return.

"Get a room, you two," said Al, unamused. "Now, where did the baby run off to…?"

"I think she went to go bother Den," said Winry.

"Well, she can't do that right now; she has to come with us this evening. S'not like we can leave her here _alone_…"

* * *

"Oh my God," Melinda said in a tone that said something unimaginable had just occurred. "She just shoved me out the door! She's so _dead_!"

_Be careful what you wish for…_

"Shut up!" she ordered.

"I didn' e'en say nothin' yet," said Max, affronted.

"Not you, idiot," Melinda snapped without thinking. "My brother."

"Oh. I ain't heard nothin'." He was quiet for a moment while Melinda was checking under the mat in hopes of finding the spare key. "How many brothers you got?"

"One. None. Doesn't matter. Hmm, I wonder if they hide it in the bushes…"

"I don' get it."

"My brother is DEAD, okay? _God_! Keep the hell up!" She stomped off the porch past him, resigning herself to crawling on her hands and knees for the spare.

"But… then why'd ya say shut up?"

"Because… just because! Look, you shut up too. I need to find the—ow, my arm! Stupid bush—keys!"

"Maybe they're un'er the eave? Tha's where _my _parents keeps 'em."

"Well, the eave is like eight feet tall, and I'm 4'9", so how do you expect me to get it if it's up there? Anyway, Luna and Ed and Winry are all pretty short for their ages. Ed especially 'cause he's a boy and he should be taller. But Luna's actually the shortest. Anyway, Pinako was even shorter than them when she was… uh, not dead. Al's the only one tall enough to reach up there easily. Why would they hide the key in a place where only one person can get it? That defeats the purpose of_ having_ an emergency spare key."

"Oh. Well, uh, while you're gonna be crawling in the bushes…" He leaned over the railing and looked at her protruding legs. "Min' if I esplain about what happ'nd?"

"I won't be listening, but you could try."

"Umm…"

"For God's sake, _yes! Tell _me! Sheesh! Gotta spell _everything_ out for you people…"

Max was the youngest and smallest of four brothers, and if there was one thing he had learned it was how to throw a punch. He knew he was no angel about it either. The only thing holding him back was the fact that underneath it all, Lindy was still a girl. An irascible, bratty, frustrating girl, but a girl nonetheless. And you weren't supposed to hit girls. Never, never, never ever.

He sucked in a big breath of chill October air [2] and explained once again the story of what had happened to his family last week. He finished by apologizing for missing their meeting, and said, "I was wond'rn, Lindy, if it was okay for us t' have this li'l ronday-voo today instead'a just forgettin' 'bout it. 'Cause I have som'm _real _import'nt t'say. An'… um, yeah. It's real import'nt."

"Well, out with it, idiot. What's this thing that's so important?"

"Um, well… could you, uh, stop crawlin' 'round in the bushes for a sec?"

"Why? Do you think the spare might be hidden somewhere else on the porch?"

"No. I mean, maybe. But I don' care 'bout the spare. Look, can ya jus' get outta the bushes and talk to me like a person?"

"You're not really interesting enough to me to merit that kind of specialized attention."

Max frowned at her. "Uh…"

"You and your 'uh's," she observed. "Can't you just say what you want to say?"

"Uh…" Luna had warned him about how Lindy could be, and had advised him that the best course of action in her case was to be Machiavellian: gentle if convenient, forceful when necessary. "You're never going to find the key, Lindy."

Her head poked out of the top of the bush. Her hair was catching on the branches. "What do you know about it?"

"Luna hid the key. At least, she said she was gonna."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"'Cause you'd'a pitched a fit," he said nonchalantly as he walked down the steps and cae around to stand in front of her bush.

"What makes you think I'm not going to pitch a fit now?"

He reached into the mass of leaves, found her wrist, and tugged, ignoring her protests. "'Cause now we're goin' for a walk, whether you wanna or no. C'mon."

* * *

_A butterfly flaps its wings… _

Patrick Ingalls was barely four years old when he tragically drowned while playing with his big brother Max by the river.

His mother Holly never really got over it. She was forever scarred with the fear of losing a child. When Hannah Ingalls suffered a (relatively) small injury, Holly insisted that her daughter be transported to a hospital. Since the Ingallses didn't have family in Resembool to keep an eye on the other kids, Holly had no choice but to haul all of her other sons to the next town. As a result, Max Ingalls was unable to fulfill a promise he had made to a classmate of his.

Meta Erlich ran home in tears, then demanded of her family that she be 'forbidden' to go to the surprise birthday party of one of her friends, a girl by the name of Tricia McMillan.

_The tiny gust of air ripples outward…_

Tricia McMillan's mother Nadine had been missing for four months, ever since the onset of the Aerugean Fever. Frank and Nadine McMillan were the owners and operators of a small shop that sold perfumes, candles, and seasonal party supplies.

Just a few days after Meta Erlich missed the birthday party of Tricia McMillan, Frank McMillan got a rather odd phone call from a girl named Winry Rockbell, who placed an order for eight dozen miniature unscented candles. Frank had heard a rumor of what was in store and quickly realized what Winry meant to do with these candles. Frank rushed to give Winry all those candles free, but declined to explain why, hoping she would write it off as simple charity, which she did.

_The ripples gain momentum, like a snowball rolling down a steep hill…_

Two days later, Alphonse Elric called Jack and officially invited him to come along. He accepted.

That Friday, Max Ingalls came to Meta Erlich's home and convinced her to take a walk with him.

He took her to a place by the river. It was a special place for Max, because it was the place where a dam once stood.

_A breath of wind becomes a gale; a splash becomes a tsunami…_

Max engaged her in a long conversation to distract her from what she would inevitably notice: the glow of eight dozen lit candles in sixteen dozen hands. As they approached the planned gathering place, an impressive hush descended over the twilight. The sound of quiet breathing and feet shuffling over the grass and dirt were the only discernable noises.

Just as Meta inevitably turned around and saw the oncoming crowd of people, someone started humming the somber tune to a familiar Amestrian folk hymn, and it quickly caught on in the crowd.

Meta looked like she wanted to yell at Max for bringing her here and planning this, or maybe at the crowd for existing, but the sight of so many people coming towards her in tandem was an impressive sight, even for someone as jaded as she.

Even the moon seemed to be holding her breath.

_Everything culminates…_

Someone handed Meta a candle, but she couldn't see or hear them between the tears in her eyes and Eli's din in her head.

Friends and family and people she only half-knew surrounded her. The sense of clusteredness somehow escaped feeling claustrophobic.

_A hundred other butterflies, a thousand maybe…_

An old woman hobbled along, supported by her teenage granddaughter. Frank MacMillan sent a prayer to the heavens for Nadine. A man held a baby in his arms, while the woman next to him carried both of their candles. Holly Ingalls kissed her husband on the mouth for the first time in eight months. A child balanced her candle on one palm and swung her father's hand back and forth in the other. June Ryder kissed her mother, her two little brothers Brian and James, and her aunt Lucy.

Overcome with emotion, Winry Rockbell started to cry. Edward Elric put his arms around her—both arms—and, seeing this display of affection; Alphonse finally _totally _forgave himself for the fact that Ed still bore that automail. It was a part of who Ed was now, and it worked for him. That was all that mattered… all that had ever mattered.

Al visually searched the crowd until he found Luna, then he hurried to her, being careful of his candle (and everyone else's) but when he finally got to her, he swayed on the balls of his feet and didn't look like he knew what to do with himself. Luna solved this problem by pulling his face down to her level and kissing him.

Someone was talking in Meta's ear about the symbolism of the candles—probably Syiera, assuming she was even here—but Meta wasn't really listening.

_These are_ _people_, she was realizing as if for the first time. They weren't 'country hicks' or 'naggy annoyances'—they were people, people with hopes and dreams and thoughts and opinions who had come here because they just _cared._

And not even just about Meta, either. People were praying for their own loved ones, names etched into the sides of candles.

_The motion of a butterfly flapping its wings causes a tornado somewhere far away…_

Meta stared at her candle, watched a bead of wax drift slowly down the side, watched the flame flicker without dying.

_It's me,_ said Eli. _I'm here. I won't leave you._

"But what if I want you to?" she whispered.

_Are you sure?_

She was very quiet. Finally, "Yes."

_Then do it._

Meta took a breath and blew out the candle.

"Goodbye."

* * *

**[1] = It's kind of a weird metaphor. Ed is championing the power of hard work and having faith in oneself. The pied piper analogy is his way of warning against the dangers of being a sheep. Luna disagrees with him—not to say that she doesn't agree about the dangers of sheepitude, mind you—she is arguing that life can be fickle, and that what you put into it is not always what you gain. She doesn't feel that Ed is being realistic by assuming that life is as fair as equivalent exchange. The irony is that, on one level, they actually agree. Ed and Luna both share that streak of idealism. But on a more basic level, they disagree because the root of Ed's idealism is that he's convinced that all things are possible—things like, oh, I don't know, bringing back the dead?—whereas the root of Luna's form of idealism has more to do with a fear of reality and the desire to deny reality. Basically what I'm saying is that while Luna would say, "the world could be a better place," Ed would say, "I can make the world a better place." It's the motivation for action that differentiates them.**

**[2] = I've been too vague with the timeline on this fic. I do have a general idea of when things happen, but I'm not exactly dating them. So just trust me on this; it's still October. **

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**I hope this chapter affected you reading it as much as it affected me writing it. It took a long time to make the words flow as perfectly as I wanted them to, and of course it's not perfect, but… That's the ending I always wanted for ENATAgain. **

**Don't expect any sequels or continuations of ENAT this time. In the future, I might write oneshots that are in continuity with ENAT and ENATAgain, but they will in all cases be standalones. **

**Thank you readers for sticking with it through thick and thin. You made writing this worth it.**


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